FSE

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(Length warning: this is a Novella of 23,000 words. I didn't break it up, because I wrote it this way.)

(Content note: this contains a few extrapolations, but also a lot of actual science. I hope it informs as well as entertains. It also explains a lot about the universe most of my stories are in.)

Genetics

Jeremy had no idea what to expect as he walked into the fairly large classroom. He was taking a class in introductory genetics simply for credit, since he needed some sort of science to graduate with the completely unrelated degree in philosophy. He never saw why any hard science was necessary, but supposed it had something to with what his advisors had repeatedly told him about being "well rounded". He hoped it would less work than the other sciences which he saw was nothing but math.

As he wandered slowly down the rows of tables, all slammed together into three tight rings which only used up two thirds of the room, he immediately decided upon a seat. A familiar weasel was sitting near the end.

Jeremy slid in front of two female cheetahs, and sat down next to him with a smile. "At least you'll find this interesting," he remarked loud enough to get over the quiet chatter that surrounded them.

"Hi," replied the weasel with glinting eyes and a short-toothed smile, "what are you doing in this class, anyway?"

"Credit," he sighed as he took a notepad and pen from his backpack.

"Well you picked the wrong class to sleep through. Professor Gryndeen is the best --"

They went quiet, along with everyone else, when the professor stepped out of the back room. To Jeremy's astonishment, he was a creature the fox had never seen before. He was quite lizard-like; tall and thin, a thin beak instead of a proper snout, a layer of faded, green skin instead of scales, and a rather large crest bone projecting out the back of his fairly triangular head. Even though he was definitely over 6 feet tall, the white coat he wore seemed to be one smaller than Jeremy's jacket, making him look closer to seven.

"What is he?" Jeremy dared whisper to Kyle. But the weasel didn't answer; he was too busy trying to look attentive when the large, yellow eyes of the professor turned his way.

"I will begin," suddenly stated a crisp, sharp voice, "by explaining to you how your grades will be determined."

He walked over to the board, and artfully scrawled a mathmetical addition in looping letters: "participation 10 points x 15 classes = 150 points; 2 tests x 75 points each = 150 points; total 300 points."

He finished writing, and started pacing slowly around the small ring the desks. "You must learn the right answers to do well in my class," he continued. "Knowing them is good, but learning them is better."

Jeremy had never seen such a grading system; he flashed a smile at Kyle, hoping to convey his new confidence of selecting the right elective.

But at that moment, the professor paced in his direction. "And your name is?" he asked Jeremy, leaning his massive frame down toward the fox, eyes bearing down at him with sudden gravity.

Fearing a black eye on the first day -- let alone in the first five minutes -- he replied without thinking, "Jeremy."

"May I ask why you took this course?" the professor asked, so quietly so that only he and the two people nearest him could hear.

Deciding he couldn't come up with a convincing lie, he whispered back, "credit, I must confess." The professor eyed him over, made two tiny sniffs, and stood up, returning to his pacing.

Jeremy mentally slapped himself for such a glance at Kyle, just at whatever critical moment it was. But then, the professor did it again, through no provocation of the student. "It is the belief of many professors that tests are the best way to see what a student has learned. But I think you all know better than that what happens after a test. And your name is?"

"Cynthia," replied an equally surprised female terrier.

Another whisper, another answer, another stare, and he went on. Jeremy guessed this was why the desks were so tightly arranged.

"Rather than asking you to memorize and then forget things, I attempt to measure interest in a subject -- how much do you want to learn about it. And your name is?"

Since he couldn't walk or reach, he simply pointed a long, bony finger at someone a row behind Jeremy.

"Joshua," replied a high-pitched voice.

"Now you don't have to answer this question," he stated gently, "but why did you take this class?"

There was a pause before the answer, which Jeremy could swear was the rapid formation of a lie.

"Because I wanted to meet you, professor," came the predictable lie. There were a few laughs, and the tall figure before the class softened a little.

"Nice try," he replied with a smile, "but you do bring up an important point. I've not introduced myself. How many of you don't know me already?"

Jeremy waited for at least five or six others to raise their hands before he did too.

"Very well, then, I am Doctor Horus Gryndeen," he stated as he wrote on the board. "If you can't spell it, I don't object too much, but don't pronounce it wrong. Grin-dean, like the thing you all do when you see the head of this fine institution. And what is your name?"

Jeremy expected never to be able to spell it, and vowed to remember the sound.

"He's the best professor ever," Kyle suddenly whispered, knocking out Jeremy's ability to hear why Adam -- whoever that was -- took this course. "I went to one of his lectures once. You won't get bored."

"I don't think he'll let me," groused Jeremy quietly.

After two more students, his class explainations continued. "For this class, you will be learning about genetics. I assume most of you are biology students, and that those of you who aren't will give at least one thought to a change of major by the time I'm done with you. Why? Simply because we have here in this room of --" he paused and counted with his oustretched finger. "-- 42 students, a rather nice sample of our population.

"Biology affects every single one of you every day, whether you know it or not. And when you realize this, you'll want to learn everything you can about it, for the simple reason that you will want to understand yourself." He paused to ask a group of five in the back rows their names in series, and then changed the question.

"Rather than asking the rest of you why you took this course, I will ask you a different question. From what species am I derived?" Silence followed. "Take a hint: kingdom animalia, phylum chrodata, class?"

"Reptilia?" said someone in the back.

"Good. Order?"

Silence again.

Jeremy hated this, and felt lost; biology was too long ago him to even remember the phylum of anything.

"This is the hard part. I am the only member of us belonging to the order pterosaura."

Kyle's eyes suddenly lit up, "a pterodactyl?" he blurted.

"Ten points," annouced the professor with a smile. "And your name is?"

"Kyle," replied the suddenly rather nervous weasel. But the professor just continued on.

"Everyone, for what it's worth, will be getting five points for simply answering my questions correctly. Now then, Kyle is correct. I, like about five or six percent of you, am a first generation clone. And in fact, the discussion of my origins, as well as the rest of you, will be our first topic. This, class, is where you start writing things down, because I usually don't."

Jeremy picked up his pen reflexively, deciding he sat in the wrong place. If anything, by simply sitting next to Kyle, he was easy to compare to his friend, who he suspected would te teacher's pet in two weeks.

"First topic, how genes work in sexaully reproducing species like us. And, in fact, what happens now that we have decided to use artifical selection on a large segment of ourselves. Second topic, how do genes work. The mechanism is intricate but not complicated. The question at this course level is, what do they do for us? This is a matter of complex scince, no doubt, but there are certain specific kinds of effects I intend to illustrate.

"That second topic is going to be most of the course, it turns out, but there is one more thing. I am going to assign you a research project." He wrote "project, 100 points extra credit" on the board under his two former notes. "Since it is not possible for everyone to get participation points, an alternative is to research a specific gene with a known function I do not mention in class. If you go to the library, you will find my work is an excellent place to start, if I may be so modest."

There was a general chuckle, but Jeremy only smiled, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

"Now, does anyone have any questions? Before you ask," he added as Jeremy noticed a hand or two go up, "tell me your name and either why you decided to take this course or something 'interesting' about yourself. Yes?"

"My name's Jared, and I'm on the wrestling team, and --"

"I'd never have guessed," joked the professor, and everyone laughed.

Jeremy turned his head to notice the panther was about 240 pounds of muscle, and smiled.

"My question is, are we going to do any, I don't know, messy biology experiments, like dissecting things?"

"No, no, nothing messy. Our 'experiments' will be mostly be on paper. Once in a while I will have subjects of class volunteers. I lecture best by example, and to make sure everyone gets a chance at participation, they will get to be subjects.

"Now, I can assure you that just because I got tenure last year doesn't mean I will be making you bend over backwards. All the subject has to do is something simple, and we will observe. That's it. Volunteers get 10 points for just trying. If no one volunteers, I'll pick someone. and they get 20 points -- that's double. You'll see how it works, starting tomorrow. Any more questions?"

Silence followed.

"Well, that was short. If I haven't asked your name, see me after class so I know you were here. Otherwise, you can leave, if you complete a form on the way out. It's a survey!" he added over the bustle of packing students, "don't put your name on it!"

Jeremy grabbed the sheet of paper as soon as he was able, waiting for the weasel outside. It took two whole minutes for Kyle to emerge.

"He says he's going to use it for the course," he explained, referring to the survey.

"Oh," Jeremy sighed, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Nonsense," continued Kyle as Jeremy skimmed the page, "this guy's not so bad. I know people who failed both of his tests and got a perfect overall!"

But Jeremy had already found a suspcious reason. The questions were quite strange, indeed.

***

The next day, Jeremy met Kyle for lunch in the common room of their dorm. He was still annoyed about the survey, and had been waiting the entire morning to bring up the subject.

"Notice anything weird about the survey?" he demanded, still glaring at the page with his pen in hand.

He had completed all but the second question, all of which he could imagine could be gene related: are you male or female; how much do you sweat when you exercise; what color are your eyes; do you have biological parents; how tall are you; etc. But the second question was one determined not to be genetic long ago: would you prefer a mate who was male or female.

"Not really," Kyle replied with his mouth full of a ham sandwitch, extra ham, "except maybe that second one."

"That's the one," growled the fox.

"C'mon, it's a survey. He won't know it's you."

"I just don't like what it implies, that's all."

"It might not imply anything. I'm sure he'll do something with it constructive. At his lecture? He managed to show how these two cats were distantly related, just by looking at their eyes. I mean, he's good!"

"And I bet he didn't point out everyone with different eye color," grumbled Jeremy.

"I asked him about this question yesterday in a different class. He said that he was going to demo one of his pet theories about mate selection, that's it."

Jeremy felt like he could trust Kyle, if not the professor. So, he reluctantly circled M.

"If you're wrong," he growled, "it's your head."

"But if it's his fault, --"

"Even so, you'd better be right. This is really important to me, even if it's easy for you."

Kyle didn't answer, just eating in silence.

The next week, when class came around again, everyone handed in their surveys. Jeremy made sure to stick his in the middle of the pile, as a dose a paranoia told him the professor was watching from the back and writing down the order they were handed in. He sat down, the issue making him nervous all over again from an otherwise dull week.

As the class began, once again, the pterodactyl stepped out of the back room, and started pacing. "Alright, let's talk about family trees," he began, drawing a small circle on the board and labeling it YOU. "Most of you have parents," he continued, drawing two lines connecting two cirlces above it, labeling them MOTHER and FATHER.

"There are some of you who don't also have parents, but I'll get to that in a moment. Suffice it to say that, you all have parents. All of you appear to be old enough to have a mother and father, because the defeating of genetic imprinting was relatively recent, so we don't have to worry about two mothers and two fathers." He drew more lines, skipping the circles into a spreading tree up the board. "Now, there's one of you, two parents, four great grand parents... so how many parents are there at 24 generations back?"

Kyle answered, "65."

Jeremy didn't believe that, and the professor agreed with him -- but not in the way he expected.

"Wrong," he pointed, "but you've got the trick answer. No, the answer is, in fact, we don't know. Assuming you had the biggest possible family tree, that number would be 16,384. The trick question is: how many parents are there at 26 generations back?" The class murmured a somewhat disorganized 65 as Jeremy wrote it down.

"Correct. They are the original 65 created by Maxwell Schmidt. He took 65 humans, enough to sustain a population without too much trouble, copied them 18 times, and mixed each copy with each of the 18 original mammalian types, resulting in 65 of each type. Kyle, do you know how many generations you have?" he asked, pointing at Kyle, and making Jeremy glad it wasn't him. Kyle shook his head.

"Please stand up," the professor requested, more of a question than anything.

Kyle stood, and Jeremy made sure to look up at him along with the rest of the class; he didn't want the mass of eyes heading this direction landing on him.

"This fine young specimen is a late comer, not one of the original 18. I believe his first ancestors were first created about 100 years ago. That's six generations at most. On the other hand, Jared -- stand please -- Jared is one of the original eighteen -- though his parents could have been cloned, which would create a gap somewhere. Thank you both, you can sit."

They sat with a shuffling of chairs.

"Whew," Jeremy simply had to exhale to himself. Fortunately, the professor didn't react.

"Every generation gets half the genes from the father, half from the mother. Since I promised Jared not to do anything messy, we can't have this half of the class --" He held his arms in a pie-shaped wedge covering about 20 students. "-- mate with this half, and see what genetic combinations your offspring get. Some silly bureaucratic rules won't let me do that."

There was an appreciative, but nervous, chuckle when he paused for with a smile.

"So, we're going to do all our breeding experiments on paper."

The chart was then filled in with a simple marker: eye color. The eye color of YOU was then traced up the chart to the eye color of the GGG MOTHER five generations back, through dominant and recessive transformations. Jeremy kept up easily, even when he started getting into different pigments being dominant and recessive genotypes, and how to tell which was which. In short: just see where they disappear.

After the simple example, however, there was an interlude. "Can we do fur color this way?"

Silence.

"Anyone?"

Jeremy decided this was his opportunity: he had a 50/50 chance of getting it right, and the worst that happened was Kyle was getting 10 more points. So he blurted, "no."

"Correct," smiled the professor, pointing again quickly with his chalk. "Why not?"

Jeremy had no idea. "Because... because it's more complicated than that?" he answered.

"True, but how?"

Jeremy didn't want to say "I don't know" out loud. As he was racking his brain for something to say, the professor instructed, "stand up. I'll show you. Could I have another fox stand up, please. any fox? Good, Joshua. Please come up front here, you too Jeremy, and I'll need -- how about you two girls, also come up front please."

Jeremy walked up to all the eyes upon him into the central ring as the professor moved back behind them all as they organized into a line without thinking.

"Now, talking about fur patterns, it would be best if the subjects were naked so we could see them in their entirety."

He waited until there was sufficient nervousness on the part of Jeremy and the others, and amusement on the part of the other students, before he continued.

"But unfortunately, those silly rules get in the way again, so the best we can do here is to compare arms. If you would all roll up your sleeves, please, and show the class your forearms."

Jeremy, who took his coat off when he entered, simply held up his arms, since he had short sleeves on. So did the other fox. Both cheetahs rolled up the sleeves of their purple sweaters, which matched.

"Now, what's the difference between the two foxes?"

Another male cheetah in the back was the first of the murmur of the obvious. "His coat is darker than his."

"But in this case, the 'red' and 'brown' fox phenotypes come from a multitude of genes. There are also black foxes, white foxes, and grey foxes, for example. You cannot simply trace one pair of genes to dominant and recessive traits. But even more interesting than that are these two girls."

Jeremy felt a hand rest on his shoulder, even though the professor's other arm was the one focusing everyone's attention elsewhere. He assumed it was absent-minded, and tried to ignore it.

"What's the difference in these two?" he asked.

It took quite a pause before someone in the back of the room said, "they look identical."

"Five points to Adam. In fact, they are exactly identical. Now you two aren't related are you?"

"No, just friends," answered the taller one.

"So why would they have exactly the same pattern?"

"Maxwell Schmidt," answered Kyle.

"But Maxwell Schmidt also made dark and light foxes; why only one kind of cheetah?"

Silence.

"The answer, class, is because he had only one kind of cheetah to begin with. All cheetahs, even those in the wild, have only one pattern of spots. In fact, cheetahs in the wild are all 97 percent identical! We suspect that there was some sort of massive extinction event, and only one version survived for some reason. The question is, given this information, how could you possibly know which genes affected spot pattern?"

Silence.

"The answer is, you can't. At least, not from deduction. Maxwell Schmidt knew a lot more about genetics than I will go over in this class. But for now, we are looking at genotypes entirely from a deductive point of view, as if we knew nothing about genes, and for now, we don't know. Thank you all," he addressed to the four and finally removed his hand from Jeremy's shoulder, "all four of you get ten points. You may go back to your seats."

Jeremy sat down, and the professor continued. "In fact, I will give anyone a perfect mark in this course, without any further work or even attendence, if they can bring me two cheetahs whose spot patterns aren't identical. You could start with a bar down on Badgerton that will give you a chance to see many in their entirety."

Jeremy laughed, along with the rest of the class, but not at the joke; he was still happy at just having survived his encounter with the professor -- and gotten his 10 points for the day. He could still feel the invisible imprint of the smooth palm on the back of his shoulder, but reminded himself it meant nothing.

Determined to make it worthwhile, he kept his attention on the rest of the day's subject matter: genotypes, phenotypes, and how one goes about untangling multiple genes from a single phenotype. It turned out to be a very long process of checking siblings and using complex value tables. It was hard to follow at times, and somewhat boring, but he found the general idea of deducing genes to itself be fascinating.

The professor concluded his lecture with an announcement. "That's it for today, but before you go, I will need some volunteers for an experiment coming up in a few weeks. This involves our future discussion on behavior and genetics. I need three females and three males who answered on the questionaire that they sweat a lot after exercising."

The professor pointed out hands as they raised slowly, one at a time. "One, good...two... three. And three males... one... c'mon, two more... this will be twenty points for an entire day in the future, guaranteed... come, now ..."

But no more hands raised. Jeremy answered the question the right way, but didn't want to attract any more attention than he already had. But when no one else seemed to come to the rescue, he decided to take a risk.

"Thank you, Jeremy, and? ... good. That's all I needed. Please come see me a moment after class. Everyone else is dismissed."

Jeremy sighed, to hide his new apprehension. As the students gathered, Jared the panther being the only one even close to the height of the professor.

"I need a sample of your sweat," he explained, "to demonstrate genetic differences in mate selection."

"Mate selection?" asked Jared with a short laugh.

"Yes. I'm going to ask the class, anonymously mind you, to rate your sweat based on attractiveness."

The girls giggled, and Jeremy clenched his teeth. "Well, okay," cautioned a male jaguar, "but I already have a girlfriend."

"There is no reason you need to act on this information," smiled the professor.

Jeremy chuckled along with everyone else as his insides got tied up in knots. He considered backing out, but felt pressure from the other five who seemed to be, at most, amused at the idea. "What do you mean by anonymous?" he dared ask.

"The class's ratings will be anonymous. All that will be revealed is how many of them find you more attractive than the others. You won't know who did."

"But they will know who's who of us?" asked Jared.

"Only after they have cast their vote, not before. That's the idea: just by smell, who is more attractive? This is not a dating game, just an effect of genetics that is not obvious."

The professor's eyes were quite lit up by this idea, and so were several others. But Jeremy wasn't, and couldn't hide it on his face.

"All you have to do is exercise in a T-shirt or something, and then give it to me," instructed the professor. "I will extract it into eu-de-you, and give you the shirt back in a day or two. I need it by three weeks from today."

When they left, Jeremy found Kyle waiting for him. "So what is it?" he asked.

"I'm not supposed to tell you," replied Jeremy, voice glib, but face not matching.

"What's wrong?" his friend asked, choosing the stronger half of the mixed message.

"Nevermind," sighed the fox, "you'll find out like everyone else in three weeks."

***

The next class period, Jeremy entered to find a long list of eye colors and numbers on the board on the right, and a list of four other unlabeled numbers on the left. Presumably, he thought, Professor Gryndeen had read the surveys. In fact, the first part of the lecture was about eye color again.

"Four of these occured in humans before Maxwell Schmidt created us, and four of these only occur thanks to his assistance. The question I would like every one of you to be able to answer by the end of today is: how did he add these? Not what laboratory equipment did he use, but what did he do to the genotypes to get these new phenotypes?"

They did so using the analysis of the genetic code itself. Several in the class, described their own eye colors, and that of their parents and grandparents. Eventually, it was determined that the phenotype for brown eye color was caused by several genes which often stayed together.

"Now let's suppose someone else had yellow eyes, and had offspring with someone with brown eyes. What color would the eyes of their offspring be?" The class quickly, and collaboratively, filled in the tree for yellow eyes to answer the question.

"So in other words," summarized the pterodactyl once the next 20 minutes of work had been completed, "brown eyes has a dominant genotype, and yellow eyes has a recessive genotype, because it is only part of the brown genotype. And, if we look at cheetahs, for example, most of them have brown eyes and few have yellow eyes. But if we look at jaguars, why do almost all of them have yellow eyes? Why not brown? And why not, for that matter, blue?"

Kyle took another shot. "Because jaguars are inbred?"

"That's a rather disgusting idea," answered the professor, getting another small chuckle, "but a sense, you are correct. This is where cloning comes into the picture. Now, what is the effect of inbreeding on the offspring? Why does natural selection discourage it?"

"Because recessive genotypes are more often expressed," answered someone.

"Correct. Recessive genes accumulate in several generations, simply because the same things occur over and over again. When humans still ruled the world, they inbred a few species such as dogs, to make their features approach a state of artifictial perfection, contrary to natural selection. This also resulted, however, in unique and rare diseases that would have been selected out in the wild long ago. And as it turns out, cloning is effectively the same thing."

He drew a line from one parent to the child, erasing the other. "In cloning, you get all the genes of one parent, and none of the other. Suppose you are female, cloned from your mother, and you have offspring. From a genetic point of view, you have skipped a generation, because their father could mate with your mother to get the exact same results. All the recessive genotypes she had are not mitigated by a father you never had. And even if your mate has dominant genes, that will make your children at least carriers of the recessive genes, and then their children will be more likely to be recessive.

"So, if you clone again and again, as we have been doing, the accumulation of recessive genes in a population is just like inbreeding." He drew a rather dramatic line down several branches. "The possibilties for creating dominant individuals are still dramatically reduced. If an entire population does this for long enough, is serious genetic disease.

"And unfortunately, we are already feeling it; there are a dozen genetic diseases which affect 10 percent of us. I'm sorry to say it, class, but I fear we shall all go extinct someday, just like my ancestors did. After all, without medical technology, a lot more of us wouldn't be sitting here, I don't think." He let the silence which followed hang for a moment.

Jeremy had been listening so intently, he had forgotten to write anything down. He now found it impossible to summarize the message he had recieved, and feared he would be tested on it. He managed to scrawl, "nat sel avoids inbreeding; cloning is like inbreeding; recessive genes." He hoped that would remind him.

"What about you?" someone asked in the back.

"What about me?"

"Who was your mother and father?"

"A first generation clone effectively, for our purposes, has the mother and father of the human whose base DNA they started with, one of those original 65. Now it is true that I am the first pterodactyl form ever to have been born, but it turns out the changes compared to that human are quite superficial. We will discuss that in our next lecture."

Jeremy exercised that day, trying to get predictions of doom for all their kind out of his head. He didn't want to think about where he came from; he had parents, he was sure they had parents, and he gladly believed that they had parents, and their parents had parents. Even if his grandfather was a clone, it didn't matter to him, even though the professor had just explained it would have an impact on him. I am who I am, he told himself; whatever recessive genes I might have, they haven't done me harm yet.

The defiant attitude continued as he showered, changed, and put his shirt in a plastic bag to send to the professor. After grabbing a quick lunch, he decied to drop off the shirt -- feeling somewhat awkward waking down the hall -- in Doctor Gryndeen's office. But when he arrived, the door was open a crack, and he heard a conversation which made him listen before he could decide to do anything else.

"-- know that you're bored. You shouldn't be in my class."

"I'm paying attention," replied the voice of a familiar weasel.

"But you know everything. And since you're not learning anything, you shouldn't be there. When I say I want every student to learn something, that means you too. So, I'm going to offer you an alternative assignment, which will get you all your partipcation points without showing up."

Jeremy wasn't interesting in the dealings of the ever-astute Kyle, who seemed to know everything, and seemed to be getting the benefit of it once again. He was about to knock and interrupt their conversation when it took a turn.

"I noticed Jeremy sits next to you. Do you know him?"

"Yes."

"Get him to take my taxonomy class."

Jeremy was glad to hear Kyle's reacting was identical to his own. "But he's not interested in biology."

"I know that. But he's got a certain quality that only one in a class has, and I always make such students my proteges -- whether they like biology, physics, or philosophy."

"But why can't you tell him this?"

There was silence before Doctor Gryndeen answered in a rather strange tone of voice, "because it's genetic."

Jeremy was too unnerved by the conversation to hear anymore. He knocked loudly at the door.

"Just a moment!" thundered the professor. "Get Jeremy in," he growled quietly, "you get all the points. Otherwise, you're graded based on what, you, learn."

Jeremy backed out of the way of the door as it swung open, perhaps a little more hurridly than he should have, as he watched Kyle walk out of the office. The weasel didn't say anything to him, except, "we have to talk later" with a rather shapr glare. He marched down the hall.

"Ah, Jeremy, come in." invited the pterodactyl without getting up. Jeremy looked around the door to see the professor's back to him, facing a second desk opposite the one in front of Jeremy.

Jeremy sat down in the hard-backed chair immediately before him, and looked around in mild interest at the rather exotic office that surrounded him. The two desks -- one in front of Dr. Gryndeen and one behind -- sandwitched him to a small, narrow hallway around to the left, giving access to the door. The right was blocked with a bookshelf; the bottom two shelves of which had books, the top two shelves of which had tall stacks of paper sloshing down their ledges.

Jeremy's eyes, however, were drawn to a row animal cages along the wall opposite. All were occupied by small, furry, black mammals the size of cats with bright eyes, but who had triangular heads and long snouts like foxes. All of them appeared engrossed on voraciously attacking pieces of meat in their front cage bars with tiny, sharp teeth.

The professor, whose crest was now quite large when viewed from the front, was focusesd on marking a sheet of paper. Jeremy dared not interrupt him until his pen had gone from one side of the paper to the other twice, and he had concluded that the professor wasn't composing prose, or some other equally difficult task.

"I've brought my shirt, for the experiment?" he asked.

The professor immediately put down his pen, and spun around with a gentle smile on his face. "Good," he remarked, his voice more strained than his face would seem to suggest, "let me check it."

He took the bag from Jeremy's hand, opened the seal, and sniffed. To Jeremy's surprise, rather than recoiling, the smell seemed to go to his head; he closed his eyes, craned his neck, and rolled his shoulders before finally saying, "good enough. Thank you. Is that all?"

Jeremy didn't like secrets. The open ended question got his conscience turning. He felt unable to make any decision that Kyle would ask of him, since he knew -- and wasn't supposed to -- that the weasel's future could be at stake. At the same time, he didn't like the thought of taking any more biology classes; he considered this class's content luckily interesting, and wasn't too sure how well he would do when the exam came around.

Despite his better judgement, he dared ask, as if tempting fate, "what do you learn in taxonomy class?"

Doctor Gryndeen looked up at him in a harsh gaze for a moment, the yellow eyes focusing entirely upon him, before they softened, and he replied in a gentler, matter-of-fact voice. "It depends on whether you take taxonomy class, or one of my taxonomy classes. Taxomy is really the science of classifying things, but my taxonomy classes delve far deeper into philosophy, too."

Jermy was certain this answer was meant for him, and thus assumed the professor knew he had been listening outside the door, which put him on very thin ice. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Classifying organisms is just the boring part. The question is, what do we learn about the way life evolved, where organisms came from -- and what does it say about us, and our ancestors, and the humans who lived before. This class is really a bureaucratic loophole for me to teach a selected few students something that will interest them. Learning how to classify things is a prerequisite, but only a fraction of the actual work I assign. Often, I can get students into doing lab work for me, work they will enjoy. And I think you would enjoy zoology."

Such a bold statement put Jeremy on the defensive. Trying to avoid breaking that thin ice, he replied carefully, "I'm going for a philosophy degree. I'm not a big fan of the hard sciences."

"Too much measuring?" he asked.

The may Jeremy chose to phrase his answer was, "too much tedium."

"Has my class really been that tedious? Not one homework assignment? Only two exams, and maybe four or five times in the future to stand there in front of the class? The work you speak of is simply a product of the way science has been taught, admittedly with good reason, but I don't like busywork any more than you do. I do my best to make sure that you can enjoy why you are doing something, and if I succeed the tedium required will be far more tolerable."

"It's hard for me to believe," Jeremy sighed.

"If you can believe it for introductory genetics, believe it for taxonomy. The main difference is that there will be a lot fewer people, and only those whom I believe are worth teaching; those who really want to understand, for example, why my foxes here have black hair." He gestured to the row of cages.

"Or, perhaps, why thousands of poor panthers, cheetahs, leopards, and jaguars hae a terrible auto-immune condition -- but not foxes like you. There's something everyone wants to know, and it always leads to biology."

Jeremy did have to admit, not out loud, that the genetics course made him wonder about questions he hadn't even considered. He was certain that this professor's taxonomy course would do the same. He still wasn't certain, however, whether any of those questions were worth his degree.

"I need to think about it," he cryptically replied, ensure to leave a way out.

"Please do," replied the professor, turning back around in his chair, and resuming his sheet of paper.

Jeremy took the hint, and walked out of the room, several foxes pausing in their meals to watch him. He did noticed over his shoulder, however, that the professor had not put away the bag containing his shirt, but rather kept it open on the desk.

***

The next week of class was spent introducing "real genetics"; no more phenotypical guessing, but how genes work, and how they are organized at a chemical level.The structure of DNA, how it was organized, mutations and protein synthesis, exons and introns were discussed for an entire class period.

To Jeremy, it was too close to chemistry, and he felt like he was drowning in terminology again. The professor did his best to include his socratic method of teaching to ensure some level of comprehension, but if you didn't know much biology to start with, it wasn't much help.

Days like this, Jeremy thought, was why he wasn't going to take that taxonomy course. In a class like that, he was certain they would kill him.

Kyle, Jeremy noticed, was awarded his full participation points for answering two questions. He assumed this was because the professor was tired of listening to him. Despite his lack of comprehension, or more accurately because of it, Jeremy offered to volunteer once again. Fortunately, the task was not arduous. He stood, and Doctor Gryndeen asked a question.

"How close do you think that Jeremy is to you all, genetically? All of you. And I mean the changes, not the very long part we got from the humans."

"75 percent."

"Okay, anything higher?"

"85 perecent," ventured Kyle.

"Anything higher?"

"90 percent," suggested Jared.

"Getting close, higher."

"99 percent."

"Close enough. Depending on your exact species, 99.2 to 99.6. Now I am a little further, say 99.01, because they had to invent a few protiens to create me. But if he's so close, why does he look so different?"

Jeremy dared answer, despite his position. "Because I'm more the same than different," he replied vaguely.

"Thank you, Jeremy, you get all of your points today. Jeremy is correct; we all have two legs, two eyes, two kidneys, a liver, and so on, but more than that, our cells all have the same walls, lysosomes, nucleic membranes, and transcriptaise. In fact, we are over 20 percent identical to a common form of bread yeast. And that's why DNA is important: it's currently best utilized for microscopic effects, at the cellular and protein level.

"As we have discussed, more than one gene controls eye color, and the only real method to know for sure is to compare proteins in the eye of two individuals with different eye color, and then go looking for exons. Since that is a statistical challenge to say the least, the simpler way, believe it or not, is to see where the eye color came from; in the case of someone in this class with yellow eyes, for example, Maxwell Schmidt was most certainly the point at which the trait first appeared. We will talk about that next time. Class dismissed."

It was during lunch the next day when Kyle predictably began the duty assigned to him. "I think you should take taxonomy next semester," he stated out of the blue.

Jeremy played dumb at first. "Why should I take another biology course?" he dismissed.

"It's another shot at an elective," he replied weakly.

"I'd rather take bowling," he joked.

"You know he's a good guy," insisted Kyle voice hardening a little, "he's gonna give you a perfect mark in this course."

"Oh really?" asked Jeremy skeptically, convinced that Kyle probably was going too far.

"Trust me, I know," replied Kyle, with a jealous edge to his voice, "he has selected you as teacher's pet. Don't ask me why, but he has. You could just about skip the test, and he'd give you a perfect grade."

Jeremy couldn't resist the opportunity. "I suppose he might," he feinted, "if he'd just as easily turn around and give you full participation points for no work."

That got Kyle to stop his sandwitch in mid bite. "How long were you listening!?" he suddenly snapped, eyes flashing into anger.

"Only to the part where he threatened to give you full participation points," retorted the fox, "that's all. Did you talk about me before that too?"

"No," sighe Kyle, rage disappearing as suddenly as it had come, "just -- just about me."

Jeremy knew that that subject was sensitive, and didn't want to dwell on it much longer. "I'll only ask you one thing: if your grade didn't depend on it, do you really think I should take his taxonomy course?"

The weasel looked him straight in the eye, and through a full mouth, answered, "yes."

"Why?" was the fox's immediate response.

"Because he's a good teacher."

"And I hate biology," insisted Jeremy mimicing the weasel's tone of voice.

"You only think you do. He can make any subject matter interesting."

"He told me the exact same thing," growled Jeremy, "what is it with you? He's about to fail you, and you still worship him!"

Kyle set his jaw, and suddenly got much quieter. "I do not worship him," he snapped, "I simply think he's a good teacher."

He shoved the last third of his sandwitch in his mouth, grabbed his bag, and stomped out of the common room. Jeremy barely caught a fleeting glimpse of pain on his face as he slammed the door to his dorm behind him.

***

All of the strange things that had happened came to a head at the next class period. It was the experiment; to Jeremy, it unveiled a grand conspiricy of the universe against him.

Kyle was in attendance, more attentive than usual, eyes just following the professor's head wherever he walked, and didn't make a single mark in his notebook. The professor didn't seem any different, continuing in his well-punctuated questions and answers, though perhaps with fewer questions than usual. This was, in part, because Kyle didn't break out of his reverie to ask or add things.

Jeremy was too busy struggling to keep up with the principle of reverse transcription -- and how it could be used in a laboratory to dramatically cut down trial and error of identifying gene function -- to really care about either of these facts.

Most of the way through class, Doctor Gryndeen suddenly took a rather large diversion. "All of our examples are comparatively simple," he announced, once the class had found the genes in a large section of his own genome he had handed out. "But suppose you are looking for something broader. As an example, why did your mother select your father to produce you? Now there's no way to know for sure, of course, but consider a simple factor: smell.

"Contrary to what you might like to believe, smell plays a larger part in natural selection of us than you might think, and we got this effect from the humans. To demonstrate this, I have asked six students to provide for me their sweat." He walked back into the back room, and retrived seven beakers of clear liquid.

"The seventh one, I should add, is my sweat. Now, this is a class participation activity. All of you come up here, one at a time, and sniff each one. Then," he contined loudly over several nervous giggles, "mark down here which one you think is attrative. And what is so amusing back there?" he asked the two cheetahs who had volunteered to show their arm spots.

They blushed, and replied a barely audible, "nothing," failing to straighten out their faces.

"If nothing could be that funny," gently replied the professor, "I should be in stitches every week in my office. Well, if you won't tell us, then you two can go first. After that, students, form a line from where you sit, back to front."

The line slowly took shape as the rings rotated around the room, one at a time. Being near the front, Jeremy was almost the last one to go forward, which gave him plently of time to sit there nervously, heart racing as he watched most of the class -- from the black fox, to the cheetahs, to Jared, to a dozen others he didn't know -- vote with their noses.

"Which one do you think you'll pick?" Kyle suddenly whispered from his right.

"I don't know," replied Jeremy, too nervous to think, and just waiting for the otter on his left to get up and start walking.

"And please," suddenly commanded the professor from the front, "do not discuss which ones you selected." Not long after, the otter to Jeremy's left got up, and Jeremy stood and followed him around all the chairs.

The line formed at the left side of the table, with the numbered beakers, and the tally sheet was on the right. The first one he smelled, to his surprise, was himself, but magnified a hundred times, showing his nose all sorts of different components he had never noticed. They were quite revolting. However, remembering the experiment and not wanting to give himself away, he moved over it quickly.

Two was more bitter, perhaps with even a little earthiness to it. He didn't like it. Three was quite similar to two, so he moved on. Four was sweeter, and while it didn't accelerate his heart, marked it as the best so far. Five was a little bit spicier than four, and so simply because it piqued his interest, replaced it. Six was rather like three, and seven was mainly mundane and weak.

On the tally sheet, he wrote five. However, he wrote it quite slowly; he was astonished to find that not only was he not alone, but there were also a flood of ones, under both sides of the "I am Male/Female" bifrucation. After trying to count as many ones as he dared, and getting over 10 in a class of 45, he sat down at his seat with his stomach in a knot, doing his best to keep a calm look on his face.

Kyle sat down next to him, and wrote down something for the first time which made the fox feel even worse: "1, 5, 4, 3, 7, 2, 6." Assuming it was the order Kyle had worked out in his head, Jeremy closed his eyes and massaged his temples, trying not to think about what that meant.

Jerem watched Doctor Gryndeen then take the tally sheet, and on the board, write the number of ratings. Jeremy got an amazing 4 females and 3 males. The ever-popular number five got 4 males and 9 females; the two of them together added up to half the class. The other half was divided into a quarter for 2 and 4, and the other quarter split between 3, 6 and 7.

But the professor, after this tally, put up another four numbers, which he did not yet label, and then added up the male and female halves from 1, 4, 5, and 7 together and 2, 4, and 6 together. This made the fox even more nervous, and now convinced that this experiment was going to embarass a lot of students -- or at least, himself.

"Now, let me explain," began the professor, Jeremy on the edge of his seat, hiding most of his face except for his eyes. "First, just looking at it, the number of you who answered the survey question about your mating preferences roughly aligns with what your nose tells you. It is entirely normal for 10 of you, as shown here, to have your nose and your brain disagree. It simply means you don't choose with your nose."

Jeremy couldn't help but glace over at Kyle, who was also starting to look more nervous. If that was the order of his votes, was he a mistake -- or had he been lying to Jeremy for the many months they knew each other?

"But, the winner is five. Rather than embarassing you and asking you why, I will simply say that I suspect many of you were not particularly attracted to anyone. What I am testing here is something demonstrated in humans long ago: the opinion of smelling sweat is based upon genetic diversity.

"Differing sets of antibodies have been directly correlated to the smell of sweat, and the more different you are from the subject, the more 'attractive' or 'interesting' you will find them from smell alone. Additionally, in my work, I have identified three genes which directly affect the smell of individuals, and those with two different mutations are more likely to be attracted to each other.

"And now, for the first fifteen point question: who is the ever-popular number five?"

Silence.

"Who, in other words," he added, "has the most different genome and immune system in this room?"

Jeremy had the answer, remembering who the seventh beaker was. He couldn't bring himself to say it, however. He didn't feel attracted to the pterodactyl, but now his nose got him wondering about his own inclinations. He had always preferred males based upon sight; but if that were so, he demanded silently, why he had not rated Jared, with all those muscules, higher? Was his body trying to tell him something?

He barely heard the answer from the otter next to him. "You, professor?" he asked, his voice rather nervous.

"Correct," replied Doctor Gryndeen, smile somewhat coy for the first time Jeremy had seen, "and it almost always is. For whatever reason," he continued manipulating his hand slowly as he started to pace, "those who created me gave me an immune system which was considerably different than the rest of you. I've built far more antibodies than most of you, and in fact suffer from one or two nasty autoimmune diseases. As a result, it is far more statistically likely I will be voted by my classes as attractive, because I will far more likely have an antibody for something they don't, and that would affect their opinion of my scent.

"So, I am number five. Number one is next. Usually, the next in line is selected because of a rare combination of those three genes I mentioned earlier."

Jeremy remembered the reason the professor selected Jeremy: it's genetic. Did this mean that Doctor Horus Gryndeen felt the same way Kyle did?

Before he could even contemplate that thought very far, however, the pterodactyl announced in no particular direction, "if he would be so brave, would number one please stand, and recieve double participation points?"

Jeremy was going to sit, and throw the points away, but thought about how badly he would do on the test: 20 points was quite heavy, after all. He decided that the very least he could do would be to look around the room and see who reacted to him.

He took a deep breath, and quickly stood up, looking quickly around to the sea of faces. Most were mildly surprised, but he could clearly tell who had voted for him: the two cheetahs hid their faces when he looked their way, and Jared winked at him with a smirk.

Jeremy found himself to be relatively popular among people he knew, but never in quite this fashion. He began to wonder how much of it, as revealed by this test, was due to restrained lust -- and how much was making too much of an idle thought.

"Indeed," continued the professor, "most often, they are foxes. Thank you, Jeremy, you may sit down."

The knot in his stomach had loosened a little when he found all the reactions to him positive, but it turned to anger when he turned to see terror in the eyes oy Kyle. He mentally prepared to grab Kyle after class and confront him -- not quite sure what the weasel would do in response.

The weakest male, in terms of olfactory magnetism, turned out to be Jared, which was somewhat of a surprise to everyone, and a fact even he was able to laugh at. The two cheetahs were at the top two slots, and a terrier somewhere in the back was lowest of the females. Kyle started packing up immediately, and Jeremy started doing the same, not knowing what would happen when he tried to get out the door.

"Before you go," thundered the professor as their packing seemed to start a wave of it, "I will dismiss my six test subjects first, since they have been most brave. I am greatful. I would also like to see them individually in my office later. You six may go."

Jeremy, glad to escape without a riot, walked out with them -- but waited by the door. He was planning to catch Kyle without him escaping.

"If you're ever looking for someone, let me know," purred the wrestler on his way by. The cheetahs flicked their tails and their eyes at him, too. Jeremy then realized that, if he waited, he would have to endure the looks of every student individually.

As he heard the moving of chairs, he decided to hide behind opaque wooden door. He slid it closed a little bit, careful not to loosen the stop too much, and braced his knee against it and the wall to keep from getting crushed.

He watched everyone file out through the crack facing the hall, one and two at a time, talking to each other quite nervously. But even after most of the class had left, Kyle didn't appear. He waited for the last person to leave, and he still didn't hear the weasel.

Only when he heard a distant door slam did he realize the trick: he had gone through the connecting classroom.

He looked around the corner to see him walking down the hall in the opposite direction. He slipped out from behind the door, and started walking faster. Kyle heard him after two steps, turned around, and started to run. Jeremy sprinted after him; he followed Kyle at a rapid pace down the hall, around the corner, into the stairwell and down the stairs, and around to the other hall. As Jeremy's legs started burning, his brain was doing his best to try and ascertain Kyle's final destination. He had to be headed to the dorm, he could only guess.

Since there were a hundred halls that could get to the right side of the building with the exit, afterwhich Kyle could probably get away, he just kept following, lungs and legs getting worse by the second. When Kyle faked him out, however, going down to the basement and then back up again right in front of the door, Jeremy drew upon his last ounce of strength and gave his legs one big push.

He got close enough that when Kyle stopped to push open the door, Jeremy slammed himself into it. The impact knocked the door open, making Kyle stagger backwards reflexively, and allowed Jeremy to steer him into the wall of the building outside before he regained control.

"We need to talk!" he yelled breathlessly, trying to catch his breath now that he had caught Kyle as his fur started to itch.

The weasel was also out of breath, but didn't say anything, just looked back at him, eyes still filled with the fear they had earlier.

"All I want to know is," he asked much more quietly when Kyle said nothing, "how long?"

"Jer, I've always thought of you as my friend --"

"How long!?" he repeated.

"It's not that simple," he panted, "you know how it is. Maybe -- maybe once in a rare while I'd think about you, but never seriously, and that test is wrong, anyway!"

Jeremy realized that, despite the nip in the autumn air, he was starting to sweat as his legs kept hurting him. He looked into Kyle's eyes again, with the same expression, and realized that perhaps it wasn't fear after all; not quite, anyway.

"And what about now?" Jeremy demanded intimidating him with his body as best he could -- and in so doing pushing his sweaty scent upon him.

Kyle's eyes moved around his face, down his neck to his chest, and then back up to his face. He didn't answer, but just kept breathing. Jeremy still had the weasel by the shoulders; he decided to try letting go. Kyle didn't run.

"Could -- could I ask a favor?" asked Kyle.

"What?" sighed Jeremy bending over and rubbing his aching legs.

"Kiss me."

Jeremy didn't want to encourage this; he still saw it as strange, and a bit deceptive. "I'm sorry, Kyle," he replied more harshly than he intended, "I just want to be friends. That's it."

"One kiss is all I ask. I'll never mentioned it again."

Jeremy wasn't sure he could avoid the subject, but decided that if anything, appeasement was the shortest route to a resolution if not the best.

He stood back up, and slowly moved toward his current best friend, trying to find something attractive enough about him to draw up his own passion.

He kissed Jeremy on the nose for just about one second. It was the best he could manage; it was too weird to him.

"Thanks," Kyle replied, relaxing quite a bit, "I'll take what I can get. By the way, you might want to practice that for the next time you see Doctor Gryndeen."

Jeremy remembered the insight he had put aside. "Huh?" he asked Kyle, still trying to tell himself he was imagining it.

"There's only one reason I can see," Kyle replied as he started walking toward the dormatories, "why he would try to get a philosophy major into his taxonomy course, and not be able to ask you himself. And reject someone who knew everything."

Jeremy followed, trying to focus on this new problem instead of what had just happened. "How would you know if he's -- attracted to me?" he repeated.

"He all but told me himself. I went in there to ask him about being one of his lab assitance, as nicely as I could, and he said no. I asked why, and then he flew off the handle about my work habits, like I was his worst student. Instead, he said you should. And I can't see any academic reason why."

Jeremy, unfortunately, couldn't either.

***

For the next several days, Jeremy and Kyle avoided each other. At lunch, they sat on opposite sides of the dorm, and ignored each other. Jeremy didn't know how long this would go on, but was planning to let Kyle make the first move. He felt he simply couldn't say anything else, for fear it would be too awkward and subject to misinterpretation. He could only hope Kyle wasn't waiting to for the same reason.

Between classes, on the following Friday, Jeremy went to see Doctor Gryndeen as requested, wondering what he wanted to talk about. He assumed that even if Kyle was right, and the professor did think more highly of him than a professor should, that it would be easy to deal with. He simply wouldn't take that taxonomy course. He assumed the professor wasn't spiteful enough to grade him down for refusing a bold advance, if it came to that.

The fox walked up to the closed door and knocked quickly. He could hear something faint, some gutteral noise, so assumed the room was occupied. When there was no answer, however, he knocked again, more nervously.

"Just a minute," called Doctor Gryndeen in a rather odd tone of voice, far more gravelly than normal, followed by a slurp which Jeremy could barely hear through the door.

It was another five seconds of silence before a throat cleared, and finally the question was asked, "who is it?"

"Jeremy," replied the fox nervously, wondering what was going on. Another pause followed.

"Come in," finally stated the professor, his voice back to normal.

Jeremy opened the door to find the pterodactyl in front of his back-facing desk. He clenched a clear, empty, tall glass in his left hand with green film at the bottom, and handled it nervously. "Sit," he stated crisply, clenching his free hand into a fist and his neck rigidly keeping his head looking at the wall.

Jeremy didn't know what this was about, and whatever ideas he had about fighting off the professor melted in the face of new concern over his condition. He simply sat gingerly into the same chair as before. "Are you alright, professor?" he asked.

"I will be in a minute," he breathed, the tension keeping him leaning rigidly on his desk, "what did you want to see me about?"

Jeremy wasn't sure what was going on, but assumed this had to do with his unique physiology, and was willing to believe him. "I'm here because you asked to see me."

The professor suddenly stood up, spreading out his long fingers to continue leaning over the desk. "Oh, that's right, I did. In that case, I should ask, are you enjoying my class?" He asked doing his best to normalize his voice, but Jeremy could tell he was in fairly serious physical discomfort.

"I'm finding it much more of challenge than the first few weeks," he confessed, thinking more about the great anguish in front of him instead of what he was saying.

Before Jeremy could finish his answer, the pterodactyl suddenly gasped and arched his back. "Get that trash can, on the right!" he snapped, "now!"

Without even thinking, Jeremy lept from his chair, looked over the right side of his desk, losing vaulable time to struggle to see the only red, plastic bin in a room full of wood and white paint. He flailed over the desk, managed to grab it on the third try, and hurried around the left side to the ailing creature.

It turned out he was just in time. The moment the yellow eyes met his, beak awkwardly open and seeming to try and close itself, the professor suddenly returned the former contents of the glass from his stomach.

Jeremy was quite revolted by the sight, but was now even more concerned. "Are you sure you're alright, prof--"

"Horus, please," panted Doctor Gryndeen. "And don't worry, it's just my algae paste. I need about five times the amount of vitamin D you do in a typical day, and this is the easiest way to get it, but it tastes awful."

Jeremy thought a simple pill would be easier, but didn't want to argue.

"But anyway," continued Horus, slowly lowering himself into his desk, and putting the can away, "I feel better now."

The fox still felt embarassed, however. "I'm sorry for walking in," he apologized, feeling like he had intruded on a private moment.

"Don't be," sighed the pterodactyl, a smile finally beginning to return to his face, "I would never turn down a chance to talk with you."

The way he said it made Jeremy's concerns come true as far as he was concerned. "Uh, prof -- Horus," he corrected as he returned to his chair, deciding it was as good a time as any to bring up the subject, "I'm afraid I won't be taking your taxonomy class."

Horus did not seem the least bit displeased at the idea, to Jeremy's surprise. "Why not?" he asked as he turned around and sat down at his front-facing desk.

Unfortunately, Jeremy couldn't answer that question, because he still believed that Kyle had is wrong. It took him a moment of struggling for him to find his second, equally truthful reason. "Because I can't see myself becoming a biologist," he answered.

"Have you ever worked with live animals?" asked Horus.

"No."

"Well, I'll tell you what," he offered, getting up just as slowly as he had sat down, "if you can resist one of these minature foxes, I'll never mention the subject again."

Hoping it was a chance to spare both subjects from discussion, Jeremy agreed, and gave the professor his full attention. Far more stiffly than he freely paced about the classroom, the Doctor slowly walked over to the bookshelf of cages. The half dozen pairs of eyes opened at the moment immediately all focused on him. He chose one, who seemed rather excited about it, tongue starting to pant as its cage was unlocked, and without any provocation, climbed out onto into his hands when the cage door was out of the way.

The creature, to Jeremy's surprise, was only two feet long, looked as if it weighed about 20 pounds, and was covered in tangled, jet black fur. The eyes were yellow and bright, glinting vaguely like the professors, but with canine pupils instead. It sniffed and licked the professor's arm and hand, as it wagged its tail.

The professor's hands gently grasped it by what would have been the chest, letting its hind feet dangle at full length as he started moving toward Jeremy.

"Hello Alex," cooed the professor as he petted it, triangular head moving quickly and short tail wagging furiously, "how are you doing today? I've got someone I'd like you to meet."

He walked slowly over to Jeremy, and with Jeremy's unspoken permission, put Alex down in his lap.

Jeremy nervously watched as it first looked and then sniffed the jeans it had been laid on top of.

"He's been bred for kindness, rather like an experiment done by the humans long ago," explained the professor with a soft smile. The creature crawled up on Jeremy's shirt, sniffing his chest and arms, and soon it started yipping happily, and trying to lick Jeremy's neck around his shirt.

It was so cute, and slightly ticklish, that Jeremy laughed, and started petting it without thinking. The animal's soft fur, bright eyes, and triangular head which so reminded him of his own were irresistable. Since he couldn't admit it, he just giggled and let the tiny fox reach up to his face, to lick some more.

"See? I think he likes you," teased the professor, "and in fact he proves what I have long suspected."

"And what's that?" Jeremy asked, eyes not leaving the tiny animal.

"That you have a rare form of the S-434 gene. He likes you for the same reason the class voted for you."

Quite surprised, and feeling tricked, Jeremy pulled the fox away from his face, causing it to start sniffing and licking his arm instead. He realized the creature must be trying to taste his skin for his sweat.

"Uh, could you take him back, please?" he asked, voice making it sound like the animal was about to bite him.

The professor did, even though the black ball of furr whimpered once or twice, seeming to want to stay with Jeremy. "It's okay, Alex," he soothed as Alex resisted and finally came around, "it's okay, I'm here. ... Yes, it's me, see? You're such a good boy..." He put him back carefully into the cage from which he had been released with a pet on the head. "You'll be okay, Alex. I'll play with you in a minute."

With the cage door shut, Horus turned his attention now back to the orange fox before him. "Quite simply, Jeremy," continued the professor as he opened a lower drawer on his back desk and pulled out a large clear pitcher of what appeared to be milk, "you can help me demonstrate one of my theories which I have yet to publish," he explained as he poured a tall glass of it.

"It is the theory of animal magnetism. Not like the humans created in their imaginations centuries ago, some sort of natural force foolishness. This is simply the idea that that evolution favors certain attributes by making mates attracted to smells they produce."

Once again, Jeremy got the idea that this was no abstract academic matter. "I'm sorry," he rebuffed harder, clenching his teeth, knowing this would probably hurt, "I'm not interested. I am certain I would rather pursue my degree in philosophy."

The pterodactyl downed the glass, this time without any discomfort as before, and then spun around to face the fox once again. His eyes had now hardened considerably, and consciously or not, Jeremy could feel him using his height to tower over Jeremy.

"I might as well just spell it out for you," he began with what Jeremy could only guess was a nervous smile, "one way or another, I would like you to be a student of mine. Whether you get a biology degree, are a lab assistant, do some sort of honors project, or take my courses, it doesn't matter to me. I believe that you have the potential to be one of the best biologists in the world, and you don't even know it yet."

Despite the soft tone to his voice, the words sounded far more defiant than compassionate, and were making Jeremy more nervous than ever.

"Perhaps the cause of this judgement is not very academic," he admitted, "but every time I have made it before, I have never been wrong. No one has yet let me down, and no one has yet rejected my offers to them. Do you know why that is?"

Jeremy simply shook his head, almost not wanting to hear why he was about to get swept into the professor's arms.

The professor's eyes softened and voice lowered as he made an impassioned plea. "Because I care about you so much, that I will do more than anyone else will to see you succeed. I will give you my ideas. I will keep you employed. I will get you into whatever acacdemic doors you wish. And that's why no one I have ever met has turned it down."

Jeremy rather suddenly found a bony arm had reached out and placed its hand on his shoulder. It felt heavy, as if the weight of everything he had promised was resting on the area covered by the broad, smooth palm. The touch of the hairless skin brushing the fur on his neck by his shirt collar made it stand up on end. He suspected there would be something asked of him in return for such amazing benefits.

"I can't," he whimpered, gritting his teeth.

"And why not?" whispered Horus.

"Because -- it's too expensive," Jeremy found a way to say.

"You are worried you will disappoint me?" he affectionately whispered.

"I'm worried you will ask too much," Jeremy squirmed, looking down at the hand on his shoulder.

The smile faded, and the hand withdrew. "I can assure you," he soothed, his voice hardening a little bit, "my lessons on the vertabrate nervous system are strictly optional, if that's what you're worried about." His voice was laced with innuendo, but tempered with academic integrity.

"My fondest desire is for you to do well and be happy, I would never ask you to do something like that unless you wanted to. The only 'expense', as you put it, is that you work hard, learn, and enjoy my company. And I know you are capable of doing all three."

Since it was his primary concern at the moment, Jeremy's anxiety began to drain away. But this deal seemed too good to be true from a practical point of view, and so he gave the answer he always did when confronted with such difficult situations.

"I'll have to think about it," he said as he stood up, remembering too late that it was his answer to the taxonomy course the last time they had talked.

"This is quite a big decision," Horus replied, making it sound to Jeremy like he was only changing his major. "But this time, I would place a time table. For specific reasons, I would like your decision in two weeks -- after I've given you your test back."

The fox stepped quickly out of the office, not sure anything else could be said, and could feel a pair of soft eyes on the back of his neck, from the cage. As much as he hated to admit it, he was almost ready to say yes.

***

With the test coming, Jeremy felt forced to break his vow of silence early. At lunch, he just marched up to the corner of the common room where Kyle sat, absorbed in a book, and just said loudly, "forget this, I need to do well on this test next week, and you do too!"

It was either enough of a shock or enough of a mission that Kyle was willing to start studying the moment the fox presented him with a book. All during their work, Jeremy couldn't help but feel the subject waiting to come up, especially since it was impossible to talk about phenotypes, generations, and cloning without the subject of mating coming up, at least implicitly. However, both of them stayed on the task at hand, despite Jeremy's occasional odd look to double check that Kyle was equally focused.

Class arrived before they had a chance to talk about anything else. But Jeremy could feel as they walked to class together that the weasel wanted to talk. Jeremy wasn't so sure if he was ready, but knew that it would come sooner or later.

As he opened the door to the dead silent classroom, he dared whisper some good news: "don't worry about your grade, I'm taking it."

The look that moved across Kyle's face was convuluted, to say the least, but settled into a somewhat stern determination by the time he reached his seat.

The test was unlike any Jeremy had ever taken. The professor handed out single sheets of paper to each student with only one question, Jeremy's different from Kyle's. Jeremy's question: "explain how Maxwell Schmidt created the phenotype of yellow eye color."

Jeremy silently panicked; the subject of how a pheotype was created was never discussed; it was stated to be chemistry beyond their knowledge. He knew how it was inherited, he knew how it was related to brown eye color, but, but how they came about never was. The amount of detail requested was also not specified, but the fact that those were the only words on the page other than "Student Name:" suggested a length of one page.

Jeremy did the only thing he felt he could do: wrote down everything he did know about yellow eye color. He wrote the example of how it was inherited, how cloning propogated it since it was recessive, and how if it were hypoethetically caused by a single gene, the general idea of how to find what caused it. He scribbled all over the page, covering it with the straightest lines and tiniest diagrams he could to make it all fit, ranting about half a dozen concepts in a paragraph each until the page was full.

The extensive concentration, memory searching, and editing this required made him consume the entire time period allotted. He was glad that he was not the last one to leave. Feeling quite exhausted from exerting such mental effort onto a page, and wrist hurting, he slowly stood and handed in his test paper, the middle of a wave of students who had individually decided they too were finished a mere five minutes before the class period ended.

Almost all were nervous; Jeremy assumed their questions were equally impossible. But it was this realization that made him suddnely smile and almost giggle. He straightened his face, and exited as brisquly as possible, only to smile in the warmth of a realization more insightful than anything else he had yet learned in this course.

But he waited too long, watching the students all walk out with worn and worried looks, becuase Kyle finally came out. "How does he expect -- what?" he snapped.

"We did fine on the test, all of us," Jeremy mused, "that's why he did it. What question did you get?"

"It was impossible: why are there only ten colors of fox fur. He never went over that!"

"So if you didn't have a clue, what did you do?"

"I just scribbled something about how fur color would be inherited, and how you'd track it and stuff."

"Exactly! You put down what you learned, even though it didn't answer the question. Remember what he said at the beginning? Learn anything and he'll give you a good grade!"

"Whatever," Kyle grumbled, "at least you don't have to worry about your grade."

It had finally come up, Jeremy decided, so he might as well have it out now. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked sharply.

"Nevermind," retorted the weasel, walking away.

"Don't nevermind me! What are you mad at me for!? I didn't do anything to him! He just picked me!"

"And poor you, just going along with it," murmured Kyle walking faster.

Jeremy followed but didn't say anything. When they got to the dorm room, Kyle suddenly spun on the fox. "Just go away!" he snapped, his voice breaking, and locked himself in his room behind the solid wooden door.

Jeremy could hear quiet crying through the door. He dared knock.

"I said go away!" called a voice which was deceptively level.

"I want to talk," Jeremy insisted.

"Go talk to Gryndeen, he'll listen to whatever you say!"

The fox heard a second crack in the voice, and was starting to suspect Kyle's good rating of scent five was catching up with him too.

"I want to talk to you," Jeremy replied, trying to show calm by lowering the pitch of his voice, "can I please come in?"

There was a pause, and then the door unlocked, but didn't open. The fox slowly turned the triangular knob and opened it, a crack. He saw the weasel's room was fairly messy compared to usual, and Kyle had failed to wipe away one tear.

The fox sat down in the straight-backed chair by the corner window, the only piece of furniature except the desk which didn't have clothes on it. Kyle sat down on the bed across the room from him and grabbed a book off the bed, more to hold than to read.

"Talk," he snarled.

Jeremy wasn't sure where to begin, so he tried to organize his thoughts aloud. "I don't know what to say, except that I just want to be friends with you. I didn't ask to be Professor Gryndeen's favorite student, and I'm still not sure what to do about it. I'm sorry." It was a shorter speech than he had planned, but it seemed to cover everything.

"But you're taking his taxonomy course," pointed out Kyle bitterly, running his fingers through the pages of the book.

"Because he said if I didn't, he would find some other way to get to me. He sounds like a criminal: he made an offer no one can refuse." Jeremy couldn't help but smile a little at the thought of the pterodactyl in a dark coat and hat; his intimidating height and bony visage matched the archetype perfectly.

"It's just not fair," whined Kyle suddenly. "I work hard, I know a lot, I'm actually going for a biology degree," he emphasized, "and one of the foremost experts on genetics in all of Giaya just steps over me and picks you."

Jeremy decided the only way he could get Kyle over this was to speak the truth at last, the formulation of dozens of Kyle's small actions. "You're smitten with him, aren't you?" he said in a low voice, as if were worried about someone hearing through the walls.

"So what?" demanded Kyle defensively, "I was taken occasionally with you, too." He stared at the ceiling, teeth clenched and book being squeezed in his fingers.

Jeremy saw it as his way of ignoring a painful operation: heart surgery. "If it helps any," offered Jeremy, "I could see if he would put you in my place."

It had the magnitude of effect Jeremy hoped, but not quite in the way he hoped. Kyle sat bolt upright, fear in his eyes. "Don't! You can't do that, I mean, that would be -- weird."

Jeremy decided to call it an opportunity, and pushed the line of reasoning. "Why not?" he offered genuinely, though somewhat socratically, "I don't want to be teacher's pet. Besides, who better to sway his opinion than someone who he cares about and trusts?"

"Don't, okay? I'm just --"

"Too shy?" asked Jeremy.

"Not like that, but, I guess." It got Kyle to smile, as Jeremy had hoped.

"Alright, I won't."

It was a rather abrupt end, and Jeremy saw nowhere else to go, so he decided to ask the question that was important to him.

"Can we at least be friends again?"

"Yes," sighed Kyle, "if you leave for a while."

Jeremy decided that was all he could do, and walked out with nothing more than an "okay."

However, he now had to sort through his own questions: what did his relationship with Doctor Gryndeen imply? Even if nothing came between them, what would it be like just being lusted after by someone like that?

Trying to imagine the pterodactyl in the light Kyle did, Jeremy could see the appeal in theory; smart, kind, and tall were what stood out to him. He was someone who, as he said, couldn't be refused because he would seemingly protect the fox from an entire army if he could. Dwelling on him, it was hard not to change his own feelings for the beloved professor.

Worse yet, when he went to bed that night, his dreams seemed to conspire against him. All Jeremy could remember was having toast for breakfast in the professor's office before class -- despite the fact his class was at 2 PM. As they were discussing something biological he couldn't remember, they started talking about something which made Jeremy start kissing him. Things had progressed even futher, to the point of removing the white lab coat and revealing a rather thin, green-skinned chest, before the fox awoke, quite hot and bothered.

He did his best to shake it off over real toast, but to little effect. He just hoped he could ignore such things in the dry and academic environment of a classroom.

***

The next week, Jeremy was rather surprised -- as was Kyle, when he arrived a moment later -- to see a sign on the classroom door: "CLASS IS CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. TEST GRADES ARE POSTED ON MY DOOR. Horus Gryndeen."

The first thing out of Kyle's mouth was, "how did he list them without showing everyone else's grades?"

When Jeremy failed to see how that was possible, he hurried up there to find out, worried that his name would be right next to a mark, be it good or bad. He felt he had drawn enough attention that everyone would be measuring him in some way or other, and he really didn't want that.

Several halls and staircases later, Jeremy approached his office to find the otter walking the other way. "They're not all there," he advised on his way by. Rather than asking what he meant, Jeremy looked at the sheet of paper taped beneath the plaque announcing the four most significant credentials of Doctor Horus Gryndeen.

The list of test grades was sorted by question, one per line. Only the first third had hand-written numbers scribbled by them, in jagged coligraphy far worse than the elegant loops the professor used on the board. Jeremy found his question about eye color, but it was too low.

"Nope," added Kyle after scanning the list, "did he do yours?"

"No," Jeremy mulled, "I wonder what happened."

"I hope the rest of us didn't get zero," posited Kyle.

"I don't think so," reassured Jeremy, "that's not like him."

"If he wasn't done, why'd he put the message on the classroom door?"

Kyle, in a move Jeremy thought was rather bold, tried the door: it was unlocked. Before Jeremy could say anything, the instinct to be quiet covered his mouth as the weasel slowly opened it to find a rather surprising sight: the pterodactyl was slumped over his backward-facing desk, pen in his left hand, stack of paper under his right, breathing quietly. He appeared to have fallen asleep in a rather awkward position.

Kyle dared walk in, over the silent and panicked objections of Jeremy, creeping in a rather odd way to keep silent. He examined the area carefully, not touching anything, as if he were investigating a murder. He bent over at a steep angle to try and read the paper between the professor's fingers. When the body didn't move, Jeremy decided it was safe to walk in on tip toes, and he looked at the papers too.

They were ungraded tests; in fact, there was an additional one under the professor's comatose head, which had no score, but some of his writing. The name at the top was quite familiar.

"Kyle!" whispered Jeremy in surprise, before he could stop himself.

The noise, however, woke up professor's caged foxes, who immediately poured a storm of yapping over them. As the green head lain across the desk first twitched and then slowly turned, Jeremy dashed out of the office in stark terror, Kyle right behind.

Just as he rounded the corner and hid behind the open door, a drowsy, familiar voice groaned, "Drew, how many times do I have to tell you -- hello? Oh Alex, what's the matter?" The professor's chair squeaked as Jeremy heard the body rise out of it. "Aww, what is it? Someone scare you?" The yapping stopped, and then silence fell.

Jeremy could almost hear the silent sound of the professors feet walking toward the door, about to catch him at any moment. He held his breath and closed his eyes, waiting for the sound of his name or something equally dramatic. But instead, all he heard was the chair squeak again, and a sigh.

Jeremy looked across the doorway at Kyle with raised eyebrows, trying to figure out what to do next. Kyle mimed his answer on the wall: you appear in the doorway and knock. The fox didn't see what else he could do, since the professor would have an opportunity to spot him sneaking down the hall if he tried to leave.

Bracing himself, and at the same time trying to look as relaxed as possible, he took one large, silent step into the doorway, and then rapped on the open door. The professor turned in his chair, and put down his pen. "Yes? Oh, Jeremy, what can I do for you?"

"I'm here about my test grade, professor."

The pterodactyl smiled sheepishly. "I'm afraid I haven't graded it yet. It would seem I fell asleep," he added, scratching the back of his head and wiping a bit of drool from his cheek bone.

"Oh. I see. Well, I guess I'll be going, then."

And as Jeremy was about to, the oddity of the situation then occured to him. He remebered what the sign had said, and decided he should at least make sure nothing was wrong. "Uh, professor, are you feeling alright?"

"For now, why?" asked the pterodactyl with his back to Jeremy as he resumed grading the paper on his desk.

"Your note said class would be cancelled because you were ill."

"Yes, and I'm afraid I will be by then," he sighed, voice still sounding haggard, "I'm trying to get all these graded before my rhematiod arthritis gets too bad. I am saving myself considerable agony by cancelling class ahead of time."

Jeremy felt the wave of compassion returned; having to grade tests for hours with arthritis seemed quite agonizing indeed. Additionally, such a degenerative disease made him look at the professor more than before as someone far elder than he, and perhaps far more frail. "Is there anything I can do?" he rather suddenly asked.

"I'm afraid not," sighed the professor, "since you would get to see everyone's grades in the process. Come back in the afternoon, and I should have them all done." Contrary to his voice, he suddenly put down the pen and bent over his desk, rather like the position he had tried to control his stomach from previously.

Jeremy walked out silently, leaving him to his pain. He wasn't sure how Kyle would get away, but left that to him.

That afternoon, Jeremy packed up for class without thinking about it. Only when he was about to walk out the door did it dawn upon him he had no where to go. Since he had knew no one who also had that class free, except Kyle, he decided to read ahead in his philosophy textbook. He wasn't going to abandon his hopes of that degree yet, he concluded; biology would still turn him off in the future, and save him.

He just wished he could read ahead for professor Gryndeen's course, but of course, he was never told to buy a book. He also wasn't sure how much he could get out of it, since surely the way the material had been taught to him couldn't be found in any book. When his thoughts started sticking too much on Horus Gryndeen and too little on Kant's First and Second Categorical Imperitive, he decided he would have to go see him again. Primarily to see what he got on his test, but moreover, just to see that he was alright.

Making sure that Kyle was back in his dorm room, he carefully walked out of the common room, and headed for the professor's office. His imagination became more and more fawning in its depiction of Horus Gryndeen on the way, a depiction he felt forced to consciously avoid taking too far.

He arrived at the closed door to find the sheet had been completed. His score: four points shy of perfect. But Jeremy couldn't bring himself to leave with that information; he wanted to look at the professor in person. He dared knock quietly. As if imitating the knock, the voice from inside was also quiet, and sounded quite weak.

"Who is it?" it moaned.

Jeremy found this quite unnerving, since from the sound of things, he had gone from elderly to decrepid. "Jeremy," he replied, getting the feeling it would be an automatic invitation.

"Come in," came the reply as he predicted.

Jeremy opened the door, afraid of what he would see, but saw nothing more than the professor slumped in his chair, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides instead of on the arm wrests.

"Jeremy, before we talk about your test," suddenly said the professor, voice almost sleepy in its tone, "I would ask a difficult favor of you. Please close the door."

Jeremy pushed the door gently, and since the latch was strong, had to push it again hard enought the bang it made when it stopped made him wince. The professor didn't even react. He seemed more relaxed than decrepid when viewed by the fox, and that made him feel considerably better about being in the office with him.

"What is it professor?" he asked gently.

"Jeremy," continued the pterodactyl in his low voice, "the favor I would ask from you is to rub my arms to remind me they're still attached."

This seemed like quite a personal favor indeed; any request to touch him anything more than shaking hands or a pat on the back demonstated more than trust.

"The only reason I'm not screaming loud enough to shake the walls," he added, "is because I've got a massive dose of lidocane coating my hands," he added.

This made Jeremy only more nervous, but didn't feel he could deny the request, knowing from denistry done in his youth what being numb was like. Not quite sure how he should approach the professor, Jeremy walked slowly around the desk, and then tried to rotate his chair so the front was facing him. Horus let him, and even leaned back more so that Jeremy could reach the arms covered in the lab coat.

Even though Horus' eyes were closed, he said immediately after Jeremy touched the coat, "let me get this off." Just as slowly as that afternoon, he stood up, and keeping his arms limp. Jeremy grabbed the collar, and pulled carefully, giving Horus time to move his arms out.

The fox was quite surprised by what he saw underneath it. The professor's knit shirt appeared to have the sleeves cut off at the shoulder. Jeremy supposed that perhaps the need for this treatment was why. Horus slumped back down in his chair, arms taking a moment to rest the inert wrists on the arm rests, and closed his eyes. Jeremy took that as the signal to go ahead.

He gingerly picked up the professor's left wrist, noting where there were one or two tiny pin-prick scars, and started just above it. Squeezing gently, he rubbed it between his hands in a circular motion, rather like he was washing them.

"I can barely feel that," mumbled the pterodactyl, "must be where my cortisone shots are."

Jeremy moved higher, half way to the bony elbow, finding the smoothness of the skin to be unusual, being so used to touching fur.

Horus sighed, and took a few deep breaths. But despite seeming to feel it, he soon repeated, "higher."

So Jeremy went right up to the elbow.

When the professor said "higher" one more time, however, Jeremy started to get the idea that maybe this wasn't about getting the feeling back in his arms.

"How much higher?" he dared ask.

Horus smiled wryly. "The top of the shoulders would do nicely," he replied mischeviously, almost like a low growl.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, professor," cautioned Jeremy.

"Horus, please," insisted the pterodcatyl, "and I don't see the problem. The nervous system is entierly connected, and what I need the most right now is to feel something. I leave it entirely to your discretion how much and what that is, but I would suggest starting with the shoulders."

He sat up straight in his chair, arching his back a little. Jeremy decided to do it, despite the fact he could feel himself sliding down a slippery slope. As he expected, his attempts to rub the fabric of the shirt made him realize that it was very delicate, and he had to be careful applying pressure.

Jeremy grabbed the bony shoulders, and started pressing gently. He was rewarded with a deep inhale, and an even slower exhale. The pterodactyl's head lulled a little more, making Jeremy back up to avoid being hit by the large crest angling out at the back.

Without even really realizing it, his wrists tired of the shoulders, and began moving down the tightly-woven muscles of the neck. The breathing of the chest on the other side of the spine seemed to make the entire body of Horus arch and relax with the gradual rise and fall of the diaphragm. Jeremy found his wrists getting tired quickly, but felt unable to stop when he saw the state of bliss and comfort the professor seemed to be in, compared to his prior agonies.

Unfortunately, in his attempt to avoid monotony, he also kept moving around. When he was half way down the professor's back, he finally stopped. "I'm sorry, Horus, my hands are tired."

"That was wonderful," murmured the elder male, "but all I asked for was a rub. I just want my skin to feel something. You don't have to press."

Despite the words, the rise in his voice made it almost sound like begging. Jeremy's heart began racing; giving the massage had focused him, but now he felt the tension of the situation. Here was someone whom he had literally dreamed about in a position which tempted him by its very nature.

Perhaps more for himself than Horus, Jeremy took up the shoulders again, and just started rubbing, spreading out his palms to feel the skin under the fabric. It didn't fold almost at all under his fingers, seeming to be nothing more than a thin layer streched over muscles, bones, and tendons, and was quite elastic despite the age of the body it covered.

He rubbed backward to the shoulder blades, but then decided on a new course. "Horus," he asked, "may I --" "

Yes you may," he replied.

"But you don't know --"

"I trust you, Jeremy." The closed lids and reassuring tone seemed to prove it.

Those three words made Jeremy's spine tingle and heart skip with excitement: I trust you. He was given complete control over the skin of the body before him. He wasn't sure if he was worth it, but just did what he tried to ask.

Rather than down, he moved upward, caressing ever so gently the sides of the pterodactyl's neck. He could feel the strong heartbeat, somewhat faster than the state of bliss the professor's form implied, pulsing the skin. The rhythmic throbbing made the old pterodactyl's age deceptive; his heart told Jeremy he was still young and quite capable of vigor should it be demanded of him.

Jeremy slowly traced the river of blood beneath the skin as it forked, choosing two smaller veins and then capalaries he could only see and not feel along the side of the scalp, just above where the ancient lizard's ears would have been. He traced a path of tight skin around to the hairless brow, and when his two hands met, divided them again and followed the edge of two bony eye sockets, down two thin cheek bones, past the base of his beak-like jaw, and then back toward the two great rivers circulating blood.

It was a journey that seemed to relax Horus as much as Jeremy was made more excited. It was this thought that broke the tension; he did not was the professor to sleep with him, only mentor him. "If you don't mind," he answered, "I would like to see my test now."

"As you wish," replied Horus. "I believe," he pointed with his eyes and head motions, "it's five or six down in that pile."

Jeremy flipped through the stack by the corners, looking for where he had written his name. When he found it, he saw a long string of red ink. As he was about to worry, however, he read the note that encompassed the wavy brace covering most of his tightly-packed page: "your cleverness is exceeded only by your sleekness."

The fox didn't know what to think; he got a good grade, but was now positive he probably didn't deserve it. "Thank you professor," he cautioned, "but didn't I make some tiny mistake somewhere?"

"That's why you got four points off. But everything you said was accurate, reflected the material I taught, and used solid logic." It was another right answer from the teacher who seemed to know everything.

But Jeremy didn't like it; he still didn't believe he was destined to be a biologist, and was worried that he really shouldn't be if held to a more academic standard. It was a concern he was unable to voice, but so gnawed at him as he looked back at the pterodactyl now comfortably slouched over his elbows, it showed on his face.

"You would have preferred a worse grade?" he asked warmly.

"I just want to know that -- that you will let me fail," admitted Jeremy.

"I'll always do my best to prevent failure," replied Horus, "but don't worry; you have plenty of room to disappoint me, which should be just as bad."

"Worse," replied Jeremy without thinking.

"Then I'm sure both of us will have a long, meaningful working relationship."

Jeremy just nodded, defeated without a fight, and started walking out.

"One more thing," added Horus, "could you -- help me dress?"

Jerey smiled sheeplishly. After all, if it weren't for his actions, the professor wouldn't be making that request. Without a answer, he held up the coat and allowed the arms to go through it.

"I would also like to discuss your future at a future time, say over dinner some time?"

"Uh, I'l let you know," Jeremy replied, smiling reflexively as he finally freed himself from the professor's clothing and walked around the other side of the desk. Feeling almost tricked, he knew he would do it; something inside of him compelled him to.

"Very well. I'll see you in class then," replied the professor as the fox walked out the door.

***

In the end, it wasn't until the end of the semester that the dinner came. Class times were regular, Jeremy did his best and managed to at least keep the pterodactyl satisfied with his knowledge of the material, and Kyle seemed much happier about his own performance as well. He stopped asking questions, and started taking notes, especially as Jeremy found more and more of his time alone studying. There were hundreds of times when he considered asking a question of the professor out of class, but feared he might be asked about that dinner.

Since Kyle had recovered from his crush on the professor, by finding another one on Jared the wrestler who accepted it much better, he felt wise in these matters. "The question is," he asked through his sandwitch, "what happened after you told him you would take his taxonomy class?"

"He invited me to dinner," Jeremy finally told him.

"And?"

"And I told him I would think about it."

Kyle swallowed and repeated the question identically. "And?"

"And what?"

"Will you go?"

This was the question he didn't want to answer. He still wasn't sure what to think or feel about all this. Like Kyle's attraction for him, Jeremy found love to be a very ambiguous thing, subject to interpretation; acting on it, dreaming about it, and just pondering the notion occasionally were all varying degrees. He was more afraid of what he would end up doing if asked to dinner rather than the dinner itself. And yet, he felt he couldn't say no.

It was only the last part, however, he expressed to Kyle. "I don't feel I have a choice," he growled, stabbing a forkful of noodles. "It's not that I don't want to do it," admitted Jeremy, "it's that -- I don't know what happens after."

"Then make it clear nothing will happen that you don't want to."

What he would want to happen, Jeremy thought, was exactly the problem.

But since there was no one else he felt he could talk to about such matters, Jeremy took the only advice he had been given. He set up dinner for the next Saturday, at the professor's house, five blocks from the dorms, a venue he was convinced was nothing but trouble. However, what he didn't expect, and was pleasantly surprised to see, was that he wasn't alone.

When he walked up to the front door of the narrow, overgrown, two-story house with an extra quarter-story attic, he heard a conversation already in progress. He knocked, and the professor opened the door as he was rapping his knucles against the heavy oak door for the third time. The pterodactyl was dressed in a royal purple robe, giving him a regal look, and smelled what Jeremy could only describe as more astonishingly like himself than ever.

"Jeremy, come in!" he greeted cheerily, eyes lit with a vigor Jeremy had only seen in the classroom.

From the white, ill-painted exterior, the fox stepped into a solid wood interior hallway, with a very short entry and splitting staircase upwards. He followed the professor past it into what appeared to be a very tightly organized dining room. The large table, which took up most of the space and crammed several occupants into the walls, was encircled by a ring of four other visitors.

All of them were Jeremy's age, plus two to five years from appearances, and everyone looked at him, and smiled politely as the professor introduced them. "This is Jeremy, who will be taking my Taxonomy class next year. This is Andrew, Sarah, Jinjai, and Alex."

The hyena mentioned last was a name Jeremy remembered as the bright-eyed fox he had held. Was it just a coincidence?

Sarah, a female bluejay and the most visually outstanding in an orange dress, asked, "are you the one interested in philosophy?"

Still trying to make heads and tails of the group, Jeremy just answered, "yes" without thinking about it.

The white tiger on the furthest left, Andrew, rolled his eyes as she requested, "then would you please explain to Drew what Kant's Categorical Imperitive would say about conducting experiments on students?"

"I didn't say students!" he parried over the laugther, which nicely took Jeremy off the spot.

At Doctor Gryndeen's silent gesture, Jeremy sat down in the only unoccupied chair, nearest to the hall. Unlike the other chairs, which were little more than tall stools without backs, this chair had an extremely tall wooden back, sloped at a 20 degree angle from vertical and a broad board where a headrest would have been. He had a feeling it was the professor's chair, but when the pterodactyl disappeared, felt no guilt in using it.

He followed the conversation as best he could, since it weaved in and out of biological terminology, but his class helped him greatly with the buildling block jargon terms like "phenotype", "variation", "morphological", "exon" and "intron".

It took a while, seemingly only until Jeremy was enjoying himself and felt safely invisible before Jinjal drew the subject back onto him. "Sarah, if the professor isn't back yet," he pointed out, "I think it's because he wants us to talk to Jeremy, rather than about your PhD thesis."

"Very well," kawed the bird, with a smile, "so where shall we start?"

Andrew grabbed the floor first. "What does the professor have you working on?"

The fox was rather taken back by this question, and was somewhat embarassed to reply, "nothing yet, I'm just trying to finish his course."

That answer, however, didn't seem to phase or bother any of them. "Has he taught you about gene isolation yet?" asked the tiger, supressing a laugh.

"Just a little theory, very basic," replied Jeremy, still trying to find something to make him fit in.

"Do you find it interesting?"

"I suppose," Jeremy nervously replied, "but I wouldn't want to make a career out of it."

"Quit pushing," warned Alex, the hyena speaking for the first time in a low voice which projected quite well, "he's got something different in mind. Taxonomy, right?"

"He mentioned it," Jeremy shaded. Only now did Jeremy get a sense of the purpose of their conversation: to try and steer him in the academic world, perhaps for their benefit.

Jeremy dared interrupt the next statement by Andrew before he could form his first word. "Shouldn't I be the one to decide what I do?" he asked rather sharply, not liking four others he had never met deciding his future for him.

They all seemed surprised, and Andrew spoke first. "Of course, we were just curious," he replied.

"You'll be working with us, at least partially," pointed out Sarah.

"So what about taxonomy? Do you know much?" asked Jinjal.

Alex suddenly looked at his watch, and rose.

Jeremy scooted his chair as close to the table as possible to let him by. "Measuring stuff?" he asked naiievely, adding half a laugh.

"That's the boring part," pointed out Jinjal, "the question is if you can find a pattern in it no one else has seen before."

"That seems like a rather tall order," rehtorically opened Jeremy, trying to relax into a conversation he could understand.

"It's not as bad as you think, not like genetics," added Andrew.

"Now don't start Drew," warned Sarah.

"I wasn't," he snarled back playfully, "I'm just saying that it's entirely different. It's about history, about the past, about -- well, it's not usually about building blocks."

"The only thing I don't understand," Jeremy dared ask, "is why that's an entire degree. I mean, can't anyone measure and conjecture?"

"The degree is in knowing what to look for," replied Sarah.

"If you have a creature with four legs," clarified Jinjal, "then whether you can conjecture a missing fifth leg depends on what else you know about its ancestors."

Jeremy couldn't help but smile at the example, as others chuckled, but he got the point. "It will take years before you can justify that missing limb before a doctoral committee, which is how we biologists perform artifical selection," teased Andrew.

And what was involved in presenting a disseration? Jinjal and Sarah had plenty to say about that, having apparently recently obtained theirs. Jinjal had done his in social behavior of dogs, and in so doing, learned the difficulties of justifying behavior as "hard data" at all. Sarah did hers on the evolution of the heart, and discovered the impossibilities of proving things existed for which there was no direct evidence at all.

They were less than charitable to the attitudes of the committee members, though each of the students qualified that they understood their role. It all left Jeremy the distinct impression he would be unable to get one.

But as his once-perked ears were sinking lower and lower, the fox felt a hand land on his shoulder. Alex and Jinjal both looked up as a familiar voice declared, "you two obviously got stuck with me recommending you, or I would have been wise enough to be on the review board and ask better questions. Jeremy won't make that same mistake."

Jeremy turned around and got up reflexively, but the professor pushed him back down, more with his gesture than actual might. The professor took Alex's chair, hobbling somewhat stiffly around the students seated before him. The hyena stood behind Jeremy, making the fox somewhat nervous.

"Besides, if he doesn't go for a doctorate thanks to either of you, you're not going to be hearing about the work Alex is going to do. By the way, Drew, you're in trouble."

The tiger looked quite shocked at being mentioned out of the blue. "What did I do?" he asked with a smile, though his eyes were considerably less happy about it.

"You forgot to feed Alex again." Jeremy presumed he meant the tiny creature he held.

"And I had to do it," stated the hyena from behind Jeremy as the fox felt another hand on his shoulder briefly.

"Sorry," replied Andrew, "I hope he made it for three days."

"He did, but he's not as young as he used to be."

Jeremy dared look up to find the sharp, blue eyes of the hyena looking at Horus, meaning his actions were probably absent minded. At least, he hoped they were, and waited to see if a third time occured.

"What's for dinner?" Andrew asked Alex, apparently trying to change the subject.

"You don't want to know," growled the hyena mischeviously, "and I hope you, Jeremy, aren't a vegitarian." The hand patted his shoulder yet again.

"Far from it," he replied, trying to hide his nervousness at the hand.

"Good." Alex went into the corner of the room that passed for the kitchen, and from the oven -- the only space left where four large plates could be stored -- he withdrew the dinner, already portioned.

"I'm afraid," sighed the professor, "I'm not up for eating at the moment." He looked at Alex oddly, to which the hyena did nothing but silently not give him a plate.

Each plate had a varying number of what looked like tiny steaks, no more than three ounces each, in a thin red sauce. Jeremy's plate had three. As the plates appeared, each member took their utensils, sliced off a piece, and ate it.

Andrew's slice was half, and immediately he ate the other half. Sarah seemed to mull it over for longer, and ate much more slowly, as did Jinjal. Jeremy, when all of the eyes glanced at him and stuck, did the same.

It was unlike any meat he had tasted; so tender it just about liquified in his mouth. The sauce was quite reasonable, a heavy dose of tomato and something else he couldn't identify. "It's good," he remarked, after which everyone -- except the professor -- ate. He could heard the sounds of chewing from above him as well.

Since everyone else was eating, the professor took this opportunity to discuss what Alex was working on: it was a new method of protein structure analysis. "So we can more easily tell what genes do," clarified Jinjal for Jeremy's benefit.

The hyena bumped into Jeremy again, and since the timing seemed too perfect, he dared look up. "Do you mind --?" Jeremy asked, letting the sentence trail off.

Alex quietly apologized and took two steps to Jeremy's left, holding his plate in one hand and licking his dripping fingers as he continued to listen.

Once again, it was a conversation Jeremy didn't follow, the professor talking in generalities and Alex adding the specifics once he had finished the last of his steaks. Jeremy began to feel like he was in a class, occasional explainations interrupting the jargon when he seemed to loose too much. He dared change the subject when the exposition seemed to be over.

"If I may ask, what is this meat, exactly?" he asked as he paced out his last steak.

"I told you, you don't want to know."

"Oh c'mon," added Andrew.

"You're going to be sorry you asked, Drew. Notice your workload go down lately?"

The tiger froze. "You don't mean --"

"What did you expect me to do with 162 kadavers? It's no worse than what the humans used to do to cows."

"But my puppies!?"

"I authorized it," interrupted the professor, "since I saw nothing else to do with them."

Jeremy wasn't the only one looking down at the plate with mild disdain. Jeremy knew that most of the meat he ate had to go through an even more disgusting process, growth in a vat. But it was hard to imagine the bright-eyed foxes done up in such a way.

"Not my puppies, ..." repeated Andrew, voice raising higher than seemed possible.

"You knew they would die anyway, and you seemed to get over that."

"Natural causes I hope," interjected Jeremy, concerned about the morality of this affair.

"Of course," answered Sarah quietly, "they have naturally short life spans."

As a result of this development, there wasn't much after-dinner conversation. Horus, simply welcomed Jeremy into the fold with a toast, and then as if he were concluding a class, gave each of his students last minute advice, and verbally ushered them out; all of them, that is, except Jeremy.

The fox moved from his chair yet again, this time at least wanting to put all of the dirty dishes in the sink. Since the professor seemed somewhat stiffer than usual, he did so by virtual of his speed, and then washed his hands.

"I notice Alex approved of you," remarked Horus as Jeremy turned the faucet off.

"A little more than that, I'd say," grumbled the fox.

"He thinks he has to take care of me," sighed the pterodactyl, "and so if he approves, that's probably a good thing. Useful sometimes, but a bit overdoing it. But all I want right now," he continued, hushing his voice and rising again, "is to get to know you better."

Jeremy assumed that the tone of voice indicated that the professor had something very specific in mind.

"What do you want to know?" asked Jeremy, eyes growing wide and body somewhat rigid. He was in between fear and desire, still deciding which one he should be feeling.

"It is absolutely essential to understand behavior of anything, including those you meet -- would you follow me upstairs, please, to the den?"

Such a narrowly arranged house seemed odd to Jeremy, but he went, still convinced that this was a trick to get him into the bedroom or some such thing. But the landing revealed that, in fact, the professor wasn't tricking him. The third floor was laid out fairly much like the second, with a narrow hallway touching the continuing staircase, and one large room. This time, however, it had one couch and three chairs in it.

Jeremy sat down nervously in a rather thinly-covered chair, feeling like he would fall through it at any moment. The professor stretched out on the couch, and when his legs more fully emerged from the robe, it was clear that either he almost nothing -- or perhaps even nothing at all -- underneath it.

Since Jeremy had never seen him in a state of undress, the general idea of the pterodactyl without his clothes entirely was an image so contrary to that he had of his teacher he had difficulty reconciling his eyes with his previous impression. The result, was a small gape.

"Anytime you study an animal," continued the professor, "behavior is essential. After all, the way it looks can only tell you so much, for what good is a pair of eyes if you don't use them to see? And if you see, you will probably have reflexes to watch for moving or changing objects, and that let you survive. But without behavior, you can only guess what the creature wanted to look at."

Jeremy got a chill down his spine, as the professor's eyes made it quite clear what he was looking at.

"Now the only way to obtain a proper range of behavior is to bribe the animal. Pain doesn't carry very far more than once or twice, and so the only way to get any kind of desire to do anything for you is pleasure."

Jeremy didn't say anything, trying to convince himself he was not the subject of his lecture. And just as he was about to succeeed, the professor made him fail. "So come here, my young animal," he purred, "I don't believe in negative reinforcement."

As if compelled by a charm, Jeremy stood up without thinking and slowly stepped closer to Horus. "Just let me have your hand," he instructed. Jeremy held it out, heart accelerating in uncertainty of what was about to happen. The professor did nothing but take his pulse. "Hmm," he mulled, "I'd say endothermic, mammalian, pretty good metabolism, and probably a little on the lean side," he added, rubbing the point he pressed and made Jeremy wince a little in discomfort.

"But what I know now is that the creature has a vertibrate nervous system," he continued in a husky voice, "and I'm told I have a pretty good understanding of those. I would love to give you a hands-on demonstration if you would acquesce."

Jeremy was so scared and excited, his brain struck a compromise with his body. "On one condition," he replied, "and that is if you take off anything I do."

Horus smiled warmly. "Of course. But I'm actually going to start with nothing more than your arm." Having Jeremy's wrist in his grasp, he gently stroked the wrist with the back of his claw-like nails. Jeremy obviously felt them, but saw nothing in it.

"Now this isn't very interesting," narrated the professor, "because your nervous system didn't need to know much about things bumping your arm, just that they were there. The distribution of nerves isn't very dense, because if you wanted to investigate, your instinct is to use your hands."

The professor suddenly slid down to Jeremy's furrless palm, and started equally gently scratching the surface, right where the row of fingers met the hand. To Jeremy's astonishment, it was almost half-way ticklish, and made him flinch slightly.

"See?" purred the professor as Jeremy got even more nervous from this simple discovery, "By itself, your primary world investigating tool is sending probably twice as much information to your nervous system compared to your arm. The same holds true, more or less, with your legs and your feet, because after all, they used to be hands too long ago."

He stopped his scratching at this point, and maneuvered his arms out of his robe, folding it down over his waist like an oddly-shaped blanket. "Now, if you are willing to continue, take off your shirt."

Since the professor had met his demand, and the simple awareness of his palm's sensitivity made Jeremy more excited than he was scared, he quickly stripped off the T-shirt, jerking it over his head, and letting it fall off his arms in two swift moves.

"Wonderful," whispered the professor, leading Jeremy to gently sit on the edge of the couch right in front of him. "Now my lovely fox, you can feel that your neck is about like your arms," he continued as he moved the painless scratching moved to his neck, "and in fact, most of your face is too. Your mouth and nose are exceptions, but since I fear that would be uncomfortable, I will skip those."

"The head, after all, is what is to be most protected. Not only because it contains your brain, the core of the nervous system itself, but also because it contains five ways things can enter the body. Oraficies, as a general rule, are almost always more sensitive than surrounding tissue so that the organism knows when it's being invaded."

The way he said it made Jeremy realize where this journey would end, and squirmed at the very thought. This made Horus start petting the back of his head gently, as if to reassure him.

"The back," he added, "is fairly similar again, only needing to keep track of damage, and cause for investigation by the hands. But an exception, even in males because their template is the same as females, is the teats."

He moved around and scratched Jeremy's inert nipples. Jeremy didn't react, but did notice a difference. "Techncially, they follow the orafice rule as far as the nervous system blueprint is concerned. Another technicality, which is due to nothing more than the way we are born, is the belly button."

The scratches there, right in the center of the pit in his orange fur, felt as strong as his palms, halfway to ticklish.

"There we are, that's the spot," narrated Horus when he got Jeremy to squirm again. "Now of course, this is all fine and logical. It makes perfect sense the way the distribution of nerves evolved. But tell me, Jeremy, what am I missing? Is there something which is extremely sensitive, do you think, but isn't an orafice or an investigative tool?"

The fox smiled shyly, unable to bring himself to it, even as the answer formed a tent in his pants. "It's why we're here in the first place," he coyly answered.

"You're correct," whispered the professor as he folded his robe down to his knees, revealing a rather tight pelvis and a rather had member covered in the same green skin as the rest of the pterodactyl's body. "The sexual organs, I would argue, evolved a large cluster of nerves first, since its function is the oldest; older than hands, older than most of the orafices' functions, at least the idea is. Perhaps that's why it's so fundamental to us."

He began taking off Jeremy's jeans as he continued, and slid them down around the fox's knees as the fox couldn't help but tremble in anticaption and fear.

"But first," stated the professor, petting Jeremy's ears with one hand as the other began to stroke his pelvis, "I want to discuss one more area which has a lot of nerves. I am not exactly sure why, there is some debate, but I believe quite simply it is historical. When digestive systems were simpler, the orafice rule put a very large number of nerves at both ends so that one end, the mouth, could tell what it was doing. But this side effect has carried forward to this very day, and us. In fact, the sensation is so strong," added Horus as he lowered his voice, "that if it's too much, please tell me to stop."

Jeremy nodded in terror as the pterodactyl licked the index finger of his left hand, and slid it down between the fox's cheeks. First, his tailhole was gingerly touched, making him take notice, and then slowly the digit pressed him apart and slid inside.

At first, it was a magnified version of his palm; it made him sit up, but nothing else. But as the first inch inside of him continued to the second, an entirely different sensation took over: get it out.

He groaned, and without thinking, just started pushing against it. "Relax," whispered Horus, "just relax." The fox tried, but continued to pant and moan as the invader started just turning and moving around. It wasn't pain, it wasn't pleasure, it was something else entirely; a sensation that was overwhelming by itself, like the first time he'd had sex.

All he knew was that it was strong; the desire to expel was strong, an instict clearly one more deeply tied in than even the investigation of things with his hands. He groaned and whimpered as the sensation assaulted him, wanting it to stop, and yet unable to say so.

Perhaps being more perceptive than he gave him credit for, after a rather drawn out moan of higher than previous pitch, the digit slowly made its exit, rubbing him the wrong way one last time before it emerged, leaving Jeremy almost delerious; half with arousal, half with catching his breath.

"That --" he squeaked, "was -- why? Why so many nerves?" he whimpered. "Nature does everything for a reason," reassured the professor, "and now if you will lay back a little more, I can demonstrate the power of the best of all areas." Jeremy dropped back, knowing at least that this would have no angst associated with it whatsoever.

He felt the tall pterodactyl get up at first, and then hunched himself to a surprisingly short height, level with Jeremy's head on the couch arm. The yellow eyes looked back into his for a moment, but the nose then took over. Horus started sniffing, first Jeremy's cheek, then up to his ears, and then down to his neck.

"You smell wonderful," he mumbled, "you've most definitely have the gene. The gene that I can't resist..." The nose moved down to the chest as the mouth licked around the outside, contemplating tasting what the nose wanted so much.

Jeremy was too aroused to be nervous, and just watched, fully erect and waiting for the next phase to begin with great anticipation. Were he not so much younger, he might have grabbed the large crest and pushed the head right to where he waned it most; but he was willling to let the male twice his age work, out of deference.

Down the chest, past the belly button, tracing the path of the ever-gentle nails minutes earlier, the nose went, ticking the skin ever so slightly with its breath. "Hmm, getting closer," teased Horus, "to the source of it."

And when the mouth arrived at the pelvis, the tongue came out. Since the fox was so hard, it needed only brush the tinest bit of the vein at the tip to make him gasp. The hands reappeared, now on Jeremy's sack, and as he groaned at their appearance, around came the muzzle. It was so warm, wet, soft, and stimulataing that Jeremy lost all other sense of touch except for an area around his pelvis and the entire area of his cock.

The stimulation was incredible, seemingly impossible, as the tongue worked its magic on the sensitive flesh. He knew what to expect, but every time, his memory was a shadow of the real thing.

Given his previous excitement and the skillfull work now being brought to bear upon his nervous system, it wasn't the fox was carried to heights he had only rarely been to before. Jeremy felt the tongue lick up and down the flesh from base to tip; they seemed like tiny caressess on an overly-sensitive spot. He wished he could stay like this forever; not in the heat of orgasm, but in the arms of the one whom he was now fully attached to.

As he moaned at the top of his climax, and his muscles began pumping out seed, his mind seemed to reach out and fuse itself to that of the professor. His eyes looked at the pterodactyl at work, and like a baby bird to its mother, instantly was bonded. The pterodactyl was not only wise, but loving and worthy of boundless trust and affection.

Some cleanup later, the pterodactyl stood, showing his height, and his own erect member. Jeremy, without thinking, fought his newfound tiredness and just grabbed for it, returning the favor. It was quite-well sized, had that spicy taste to it, and was apparently extremely sensitive. Almost immediately, groans, grunts, and deep breaths were emminating from the tall, thin ribcage far above where Jeremy's muzzle was working its hardest.

He put his entire best into it; tongue, lips, walls of his mouth, and once in a while the top of his throat. He made sure to cover every inch of the green skin and pink tip at least three times in complex weaving patterns. And it all paid off within minutes.

The long arms suddenly grabbed his head as Horus gave one long moan. Jeremy let himself be manipulated by the scalp as the penis in his mouth started pumping seed. He did his best to carefully suck and swallow the goo, just feeling happiness in empathy with the one whom he was still fully smitten. His happiness was Jeremy's happiness, and he did his best to milk every drop from the pterodactyl who held him, and who he held. Cleaning up the mess, a taste now familiar, seemed second only to his own pleasure which still resonated within him.

What happened next was third on the pleasure list. The professor sighed and settled on the couch next to him, seeming to wrap himself around Jeremy entirely. The skin mingling with Jeremy's fur completed the feeling of security granted by a warm, breathing body with a strong heart beating in a firm chest.

The first thing to pop into the fox's head, which seemed inappropriate but he didn't care, was what he said. "Tell me about taxonomy," he whispered with a smile.

Horus grabbed the robe down at the foot of the couch, and pulled it up around both of them, and matched his grin. "It's really quite simple," he replied, as if beginning a bedtime story, "it's mostly just knowing how to measure."

***

Jeremy awoke slowly, remembering nothing but the professor's voice. All of the content had been lost, but the sound -- so different from the sharp, crisp tone he used in lectures -- was something he was convinced he would never forget. Last night still seemed like a dream, but from the moment he opened his eyes and hears, he knew it had happened.

He was still on the couch, in the living room, wrapped up in Doctor Gryndeen's purple robe. Its owner was gone, and he could hear the familiar voice downstairs somewhere. Still feeling the sense of well-being from last night, he put his clothes back on, and crept down the staircase.

He paused, however, when he heard another voice from last night, that of Alex the hyena. "You can't have him in a class by himself," he said, as if in an argument.

"No, but I won't be able to give him special attention if it's too large, and favoratism will be clear if it's too small. And an independent study won't do, I'm not allowed another one."

There was hesitation before another suggestion was made. "If he's really that important to you, then drop Sarah. I'll get her onto the grant."

"I don't want to do that!" he snapped, but then heaved a sigh.

"I don't see what else you can do if he's that important to you," consoled Alex. "She'll be alright."

"You sure?"

"I can see how much having a new student means to you. Besides, it's not like she's moving, or anything, it's just a commute to work in the morning."

While Jeremy was curious about whatever arrangement and sacrifice was about to be made -- presumably for him -- he was struggling to find a way to sneak out of the house without the hyena knowing about the extent of their relationship. Aftrer all, even very bright students should not enter into such complex relationships with their mentors.

He concluded the best thing to do would be to get to the front door without notice, afterwhich he could escape and perhaps call to apologize and convey gratitude later. So, according to his plan, he began taking the stairs one at a time as he continued to listen.

"Alex," sighed the professor, "I'm sorry. I suppose it's all I can do. You sure she'll be alright?"

"Of course, you know I can handle it. Now that we've sorted that out, will you drink your algae?"

"Can't we argue a little more first?" joked the professor.

"Oh come now, you haven't had anything since yesterday afternoon."

"I did so! I grabbed a midnight snack."

"A steak doesn't count," teased the hyena.

Silence followed, a faint gulping rather like what Jeremy had heard through the door in the office. At even the thought of drinking algae, he winced in silent sympathy. Unfortunately, he also shifted his weight on the stair banister, and made it issue a series of loud cracks.

The professor made a noise indicating he wanted to talk, finished swallowing with a breath, and said, "I need to get something."

"What is it?" asked Alex, sounding as if he were determined to keep the professor in his chair.

"You can't go get this," he replied coldly.

Jeremy was glad he was about to be rescued, and crept a little further down the stairs.

"I knew you should have eaten something," chastized Alex, "you'll pay for it now."

"It's life for me, it just happens from time to --" He never finished the sentence, and a chair slid back in the kitchen. Jeremy recognized the same silence he remembered when the professor stood in his office.

"Easy, Horus," reassured Alex.

But the pterodactyl didn't sound very optimistic. "I'm going to --"

"Easy, just relax, it will go aw--"

"I need -- Jeremy!"

The fox came when his name was called without thinking about it. Sure enough, when he rounded the corner and dashed down the hall, the professor held an empty glass and stood bolt upright over a blank plate. Alex eyed Jeremy with mild suspicion before returning his attention to the pterodactyl. "He's right here," he reassured, reaching up to rub the tall shoulders.

"Jeremy, your arm," Horus demanded shakily.

The fox held it up, and the pterodactyl started sniffing it. He breathed deeply, seeming to relax a little.

With another backward glance, Alex asked, "has the gene, does he?"

Horus didn't answer, just breathing in the smell of Jeremy, and slowly beginning to relax.

Over the course of another minute, slowly but surely, the thin frame returned to the chair in which it sat.

"I'm okay," he finally resolved, "thank you, Jeremy."

"You're welcome," replied the fox without thinking.

"Trust me," added Alex, "she'll do brilliantly."

"I hope so. Jeremy," he addressed, "how about breakfast?"

"If you're up to eating, professor."

"I told you, it's Horus. And with you here, I feel much better. I hope you can stomach bovine milk. What have we got, Alex?"

"Steak," he replied with a smile.

"Sold!" jovially called the professor, like an auctioneer.

Breakfast was flavorful, but the talk was mundane. The discussion was mostly between Alex and Horus about matters related to grading papers, genetic research, and future class material for Jeremy's education. They allowed the fox to have input, but the terminology tied his tongue, so he didn't use it. Besdies, he was more than willing now to trust his education to the pterodactyl.

He left with the morning half gone, glad he had no classes that day. He wondered if Alex had the same kind of relationship with the professor as he, given their closeness, but decided it best not to speculate.

What little of the semester remained was entirely the same as that which it had begun. Jeremy got a perfect mark, and signed up for taxonomy. In fact, though he didn't tell Kyle, he had decided to change his degree to biology.

The End.

(version 1.0)